


The Gospel of Crowley

by raemanzu, spica_tea



Category: Christian Bible (New Testament), Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: All angels and demons are nonbinary, Aromantic, Asexual Aziraphale (Good Omens), Asexual Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Asexual Character, Asexual Crowley (Good Omens), Asexual Relationship, Biblical Themes (Abrahamic Religions), Blasphemy, Comedy, Crowley Loves Kids (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Being a Demon (Good Omens), Cute, Cute Kids, Existential Angst, Friendship, Gen, Historical References, Humor, Implied/Referenced Torture, In Character, Judaism, Kid Fic, Major Character Injury, Mild Language, Nonbinary Crowley (Good Omens), Other, Pre-Relationship, Queerplatonic Relationships, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens), Stargazing, female-presenting Crowley, please forgive any historical or religious inaccuracies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2020-08-23 18:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 76,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20247412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raemanzu/pseuds/raemanzu, https://archiveofourown.org/users/spica_tea/pseuds/spica_tea
Summary: “I asked God about you.”Crowley’s stomach plunged through the earth and he steeled himself. That is, he tried to steel himself, but could not find much steely within to summon.“Eh?” he croaked. He cleared his throat. “That so.”Jesus’ expression was complicated, brow furrowed, mouth twisted somewhere between a weak smile and a pensive frown.“I’m still trying to figure out the answer. But here’s what I think it is.”-----An AU where Crowley and Aziraphale end up a bit more involved in Jesus' life than they intended. Begins around the Nativity, hits upon various points in Jesus' childhood and the rest of his life and death. Kids have always been easy for Crowley to interact with, but what about the literal son of God?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Le Gospel de Crowley](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22018696) by [Likia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Likia/pseuds/Likia), [raemanzu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raemanzu/pseuds/raemanzu), [spica_tea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spica_tea/pseuds/spica_tea)

It was just supposed to be an ordinary temptation, they said. But the woman had already gotten pregnant before becoming married, so what was there left to do? Technically, her betrothed could—and should, by law—turn her over to the authorities to be stoned or whatever monstrous thing they did to _fornicators_ these days. Crawly crept soundlessly as a shadow into the earthen house, wondering….

Nice house, as these types of houses went. Well built walls, a few sturdy chests for belongings, clean, not a lot of bugs (the most impressive part). How did they manage that in a place like this? It looked new, perhaps recently built for the couple-to-be. Crawly told himself to stop getting distracted, but this only made him wonder why he’d bothered to come out here in the first place instead of fudging the report as usual. Boredom, he supposed. Finding no one indoors, Crawly climbed the ladder to the flat roof, rewarded by fresher air and the sight of a figure on a bedroll beside a simple work table and neat piles of carpentry tools.

Quite probably this man, like many humans, wouldn’t even need his help to do something wicked or cruel, unless Crawly was supposed to persuade him to go on a lovely little fornication holiday alongside his wife-to-be. Surely it wasn’t Hell’s intention that Crawly be up here acting to reinforce the laws of God, after all. That was an angel’s job, wasn’t it? No, no, it would look bad on the record to say “I tempted him to follow the law of Moses and report his fiancé for unrighteousness” or such like. Much better to think of something more creative.

The man was sleeping when Crawly approached his bed in the lesser darkness of the rooftop. He ran a hand through the air just above the man’s face and head, close enough to feel the soft breath from his nose. Close enough to feel the thoughts in his head.

The man’s name was Joseph, a carpenter, and his head was filled with worry over his young fiancé. It wasn’t like Mary to lie, but how could he ignore the first signs of her pregnancy and believe what she said, that this was the will of God? (Crawly couldn’t blame him—harsh consequences were a sure invitation for the most extreme excuses and cover-ups, and it wasn’t the first time he’d seen someone try to pass off their sins as miracles to escape judgment.) The women of their families had already noticed and begun to talk, conspiring together, some advising him to marry her quickly, others advising him to end the engagement. It seemed the only honest way forward was to hurt her, to put an end to their relationship and let her be judged by those with the authority, but he hadn’t yet found it in his heart to do such a thing.

As Crawly had thought, Joseph’s life was already a bit of a mess. The most deceptive thing to do, the thing that would save the young couple’s skins, would be to come up with some other reason to privately go their separate ways, perhaps one of them flee the country… surely that kind of selfishness and lying to cover up immoral behavior would be praised by Hell when they read his report. He could even throw in some embellishment about Joseph going to a harlot for comfort.

He tested the thought, shimmying it carefully into Joseph’s mind like trying to fit one more book into an over-packed shelf, but the man’s face scrunched up at the suggestion, and he rolled over, nearly waking up. Crawly shifted a little where he knelt, a prickle running up his spine that almost made him wonder if one of the conspicuously absent house insects had found a way up his tunic, but then—with a jolt like noticing one’s hair is on fire—Crawly saw the starlight begin to shift and realized what the feeling meant.

By the time he’d dropped to his serpentine belly and slithered into a crevice in the heart of the pile of carpentry tools, the angel was already beginning to take form. He had a strong-looking face, his shoulder-length hair simultaneously silvery and dark, catching the sparse light and seeming to give it weight. Though he wasn’t any larger than Joseph (minus the wings), everything about him looked terribly solid once he’d materialized, like an overly self-important boulder just waiting for its opportunity to fall on top of someone. His wings were massive, a steely silver-white that shone like wet glass even in the dimness of the stars.

Warm as the night was, Crawly still felt a chill at how close he’d come to a run-in with the archangel Gabriel. He blessed the darkness; the angel didn’t seem to notice his presence at all, his attention turned toward Joseph.

“Joseph, son of David,” called the angel, in a voice Crawly remembered all too well—the paternal and patronizing voice of someone who was all too eager to do unpleasant things for someone’s own good. False patience, false magnanimity. Crawly rested his flat head on the warm stucco floor—if snakes could roll their eyes, he would have.

Joseph was waking up, slowly at first, then sitting bolt upright as he realized what he was seeing. Poor guy looked about ready to jump out of his skin, stammering senselessly—“Wha-who—whe—” until Gabriel lifted a hand and quite literally shut him up.

“I am the archangel Gabriel,” said the archangel Gabriel, because it was obviously important for this human to know the angel’s exact title. Couldn’t have just said angel, no, of course not. “Fear not to take Mary as your wife, Joseph. She has been chosen as a holy vessel for the Son of God.” Crawly could definitely hear the capital letters.

Joseph’s mouth worked but no sound came out, perhaps because he was just too overwhelmed at Gabriel’s brilliance, but more likely—judging by Gabriel’s stupid little smile—because Gabriel had no intention of being interrupted, his hands pressed together at the fingertips in the universal sign for this-is-important-business-and-I-need-you-to-listen-very-carefully.

“She will give birth to a son, and _you_ will name him Jesus.” The angel’s voice brooked no argument, all too pleasant, all too final. “He’s been sent here to save _your _people from sin and suffering. To set you all free.” He said_ your people _but in tone it was more like _you _people, you_ humans_.

And all at once, the angel vanished in a flash of light, leaving Joseph gasping as if Gabriel had had him by the throat the entire visit.

Crawly watched him shiver and sweat, and even from this distance he could feel the waves of awe and fear roiling over the man. But there was something else. Relief.

“Mary,” Joseph breathed, flinging back his blanket and jumping to his feet, running a shaking hand over his bearded, open mouth. “Mary….”

He hurried down the ladder, and cautiously, Crawly slithered after him, weaving down between the rungs—after all, it was his duty as the tempter to follow up on this situation. Though, he could already tell what Joseph was going to do—the relief said it all. Joseph loved her, was going to marry her as soon as he could. He had his answer, and as humans, demons, and angels all seemed to believe, a good enough answer could justify even the worst situation.

Crawly couldn’t fathom what on earth God thought They were playing at, getting some poor human girl to birth Their supernatural spawn for Them, after the last few millennia of putting Their so-called chosen people in and out of slavery and war like some endless game of capture-the-flag with more and more inane rules added all the time. In any case, it was going to mean trouble. The thought crossed Crawly’s mind, as he moved like a shadow across the smooth, hard-packed earth, that once he filed his report on this temptation he ought to skedaddle. Really, it would be the sensible thing to do.

Maybe Greece… still on the Mediterranean, but a bit further north. Probably nice this time of year….

…

Several months later, Crawly wandered the streets and found himself wondering again why he’d stuck around. Oh, he’d left Nazareth, but he hadn’t got far—too many assignments from Down Below regarding the occupying Roman forces. But Bethlehem was a quiet enough little place for a break, wasn’t it? Until some idiot ruler got it into his head to take a census, and now there was barely a place to sit down and have a decent drink of alcohol, anywhere!

“I said there’s no room! No_ room!_” called the proprietor of the inn Crawly—and the two dozen or so people around him—had been hoping to get into.

“Oh come on!” Crawly yelled. “Couldn’t I order a drink to go?”

A couple ahead of him turned away, and something in the way they moved caught Crawly’s attention. It was a man and woman, the woman little more than a girl, but she was unmistakably pregnant, about ready to pop. They were shifting through the crowd awkwardly to get back to where their donkey was tied up, and the sight of them, even in the disorienting shadows of the setting sun, reminded Crawly of what he’d witnessed, of the sense of things coming to a head that had been bothering him ever since that night on Joseph’s rooftop. Suddenly a drink didn’t seem worth wading through crowds any longer. Crawly slipped between the milling bodies and buzzing buildings as quickly as he could.

It was only when he was free of the little, overstuffed city—the yellowing desert grass brushing against his clothes and sandals, and the breeze combing the ends of his long hair—that he began to feel at ease again. Or as at ease as he ever felt without being flat-out drunk.

The sight of the stars was soothing. And it was quiet out here, getting dark enough that he could see so _many_ of them, even pick out more than half the ones he’d set in place so long ago. A good ways off, a shepherd’s campfire smoldered and voices drifted down the hill, but Crawly ignored them, just walking slowly, feeling the massive distance between what had once been, and what was now. Not for the first time, he considered leaving all of this behind. At the very least, the stars he’d made would accept his presence, wouldn’t they? But he would get bored out there. It was all just darkness and light, same as here, but without anyone but himself to talk to.

He didn’t know how long he’d been out in the wind when the grass bent under a sudden stronger gust, and Crawly shivered. “Bit chilly,” he muttered to himself, rubbing his arms.

When he turned his head back up toward the sky, something wasn’t right. There was a new star he hadn’t seen before, brighter than the others. It seemed to move, from the zenith toward the horizon, back the way Crawly had come.

“Oh _God_, no,” Crawly swore in dread. “No, no, no, _no._” Some kind of meteor? Fire and brimstone? Not a flood like before, no, but Their precious little boy was no doubt calling down the destruction of the earth already. Release the humans from their sin and suffering—of course more destruction was what it meant, just like last time! Only this time it might wipe out more than just one fraction of the earth’s population. He could already see in his mind’s eye the spread of ash and fire, cloaking the sky, choking the animals, withering the crops. That whole mess with the exodus and the Egyptians had turned his stomach for weeks, his only comfort being that the pharaoh needed no actual temptation to resist the commands of Moses. Too stubborn for his own good.

Crawly waited for the brightness to keep moving, to increase, to change color as it burned through the atmosphere, but it just hung there, nothing else unusual joining it.

“Just a new star?” Crawly muttered to the sky suspiciously, barely daring to believe it. “Really? What is this, some kind of extra insult?”

The murmur of shepherd’s voices suddenly turned to screams. Crawly whipped around to look, thinking perhaps they’d spotted some new celestial threat on the opposite horizon, but instead of seeing another meteor, he saw wings.

Bright wings, white wings, silver and gold wings. About a dozen pairs all told. The terrified cries of the shepherds trailed off, and Crawly couldn’t hear what the angels surrounding them were saying. Curiosity drew him forward a few paces until he stopped, considering if he could get closer in his snake form without them noticing. But then the angels lifted off into the skies, spreading out,_ singing. _This was a display the likes of which Crawly hadn’t seen since that whole Sodom and Gomorrah incident. Angels didn’t usually show off in front of humans quite like _this_. Not anymore, at any rate.

_Glory to God! Glory to God! Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men!_

“_Peace?_” Crawly gave a little _pff_ of disbelief. “Goodwill…to humans! Since when?”

He thought he could make out Gabriel’s silvery wings at one point. Michael’s golden ones… he searched the fluttering phalanx, wondering if—ah, there he was.

Or someone like him. The white curls, the simple, relatively modest white wings. Crawly couldn’t see his expression from down here, and couldn’t help but wonder what Aziraphale thought of all this. How much did he know?

But before he could decide whether to risk flying up and casually asking—_hullo there, seems the no-fly zone has been lifted for tonight, how are you all enjoying the evening?_—the angels were gone, lifted up seemingly into the stars through broad beams of light. Crawly sighed. Well, it would have been pointless anyway, if their last meeting was anything to go by.

Kicking a stray rock, Crawly wandered toward the shepherds; he could at least ask _them _what the angels had said. But the shepherds were already packing up camp as if their lives depended on it, snuffing out the fire and heading toward town.

“Oi,” Crawly called out as they nearly passed him by, laughing a little when they screeched to a halt, staring—probably at his unnatural eyes. “Where are you lot off to?”

“Did you not hear the singing?” one of the shepherds asked, seeming flabbergasted.

“Difficult not to!” Crawly called back in a friendly voice. “So what _was_ all the hullabaloo about anyway? Angels, flying around and singing—don’t see that every day—er, night. Every night.”

“They said a savior for our people is born in Bethlehem tonight! In a manger, no less. I’d think it all a dream if my friends hadn’t seen it too!”

“Well,” Crawly said, “depends what was in that fire of yours. Little communal hallucination… ehh, it’s possible.” When the shepherds didn’t seem to catch the joke, Crawly shrugged it off. “So.” He sniffed. “A manger? We’re looking for some kind of barn?”

The shepherds frowned at him and ignored the question. “Would you mind keeping an eye on the flock for us while we go? We’ve left our youngest brother, but he’s liable to sneak off and try to follow us.”

“Oh, sure, yeah, no problem,” Crawly said immediately, intending to do no such thing. Check one off on his list of daily—or nightly—bad deeds. If some sheep got eaten, well, it was just the circle of life, right? “You can count on me.”

…

The inn and its corresponding stable were on the edge of town, built into a hillside, so that the stable itself was more cave than barn. The shepherds had finally left, and Crawly had waited until the soft murmur of voices and the wail of the newborn had tapered off into silence.

At last, Crawly slid nearly soundlessly across the stone floor, trying to be careful not to rustle the straw too much and spook the other animals. It had been a bit of a toss-up, choosing which form to use to take this little peep. Snake won only because it was easier to hide if anyone did notice his presence, and he didn’t want to talk to anyone should Mary or Joseph wake.

It was warm in here, the mildness of hay and sleeping animal bodies all mingling together with the sharper scent of blood and birth. Crawly didn’t open his mouth too much—just a few tastes of the air were more than enough to get the picture.

The couple’s donkey was the closest to the manger, but still tied up a bit too far away to reach the hay inside of it, which was, by donkey logic, much tastier than the hay in the closer manger it _could_ reach. Crawly carefully plotted his course behind the creature and around the two exhausted human adults, before raising himself up, ever so slowly and carefully, to peer inside the makeshift crib at the newborn babe.

Crawly didn’t know what he’d expected… just something, anything that would mark the child as unusual. But there was nothing that he could see or feel, besides the natural peace of the stable. The baby was wrinkled and pink as newborns were apt to be, one tiny fist having worked free of his swaddling to rest by his chubby cheek. He had only the slightest suggestion of hair on his head, like a dark smudge, and as Crawly watched, the infant’s little face wrinkled even more, scrunching up into a whimper.

Mary stirred, somewhere behind Crawly, and he had barely a moment to flick his tongue out and taste that peculiar scent unique to newborn-human-heads, before it was time to burrow into the straw and watch as Mary leaned over her baby’s crib to smooth the little one’s brow, comforting him with her own scent and touch. Joseph joined her after a moment, rubbing one hand on her back as well and murmuring something to her so softly that Crawly couldn’t make it out.

Perhaps there had been some kind of mix up. Perhaps Gabriel had lied—but angels weren’t supposed to lie. Gotten it wrong, then? The thought almost made Crawly laugh. All that fanfare, for a normal human baby.

Wishful thinking. Crawly took his chance to exit the stable while they were distracted, and had barely finished morphing back into human form out back of it when a familiar voice startled him from the deeper shadow of a nearby building.

“I knew it! I _knew_ you were lurking nearby!”

“Lurking?” Crawly fiddled with his braided belt, forcing nonchalance.

To his shock—literally a burning, physical shock—Aziraphale rushed forward and touched him, grabbed his clothes in two fists, his round, soft face twisted into a look of hurt and dismay. The turban only exaggerated the creases on his forehead, exposing it and covering up the softness of his funny little curls. “What have you _done_, Crawly?” he cried, as if Crawly had personally skewered him with a spear. Did the painful sensation go both ways? “Don’t tell me you—you _bit _the—”

“Bit him?” Crawly scoffed, leaning back a bit and trying not to squirm in discomfort. “_Please!_ I’m a python, not a cobra.”

Aziraphale’s jaw dropped in horror, and for half a moment Crawly thought he saw the glimmer of tears gathering at the edges of the angel’s eyes as he let go of Crawly’s tunic and backed away slowly. “No! You-you mean you’ve—you’ve _crushed_—oh, it’s too late isn’t it, I should have—how could this—”

“Relax, angel,” Crawly mumbled, sighing as he straightened out his clothes. Funny how he’d never seen Aziraphale this worked up about any of the other children, let alone infants, who’d ended up dead over the centuries. “The baby’s asleep—or was, anyway. I just wanted to have a little look at what all the fuss was about, that’s all.”

“_Have a little look? _At the Son of God?” Aziraphale hissed in disbelief, hurt turning to relief and then fury. “You _must _know your presence would be frowned upon! This is the beginning of the end of evil! He-he’s come to put an end to the powers of Hell and everything it stands for! How could you expect any angel to believe you’re here for any sort of innocent reason, rather than at the behest of… of you know.” Aziraphale glanced downward briefly and swallowed as if hit by vertigo.

“Hell hasn’t said a word of this to me, actually,” Crawly shrugged with a little twist of his mouth. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he’d failed to include Gabriel’s visit to Joseph in his report last year. He folded his arms loosely, unsure of where else to put his hands that would give off the mood he wanted. “I was just wandering around out in the fields when I saw your little… song and dance routine up there.” He loosened one hand to gesture in a swirling motion up at the sky. “New star’s a nice touch, though. Is it actually a star? Doesn’t really behave like one….”

“Well there’s really no need to be insulting!” Aziraphale cried. “This is the most joyous of occasions, Crawly! God is finally going to make peace with mankind, don’t you see that? It’s all going to be better, now. He’s really going to… change things.”

“Given you the whole plan in detail, have they? So what is Their son supposed to do, exactly? Once he’s grown up, I mean; I know what _babies_ are supposed to do.”

“He’s… he’s going to bring peace and freedom to the people,” Aziraphale said, ending on a bit less firm of a note than Crawly suspected he’d meant. “Obviously. He’s their savior. The messiah that was foretold.”

“Hrm. Wasn’t the messiah supposed to be some kind of revolutionary?” Crawly tilted his head doubtfully and moved his hands to his hips. “Another Moses? Another King David? What’s so special about this time ‘round that They had to pop out a baby of Their own in human form? Unless this is all a big ruse and he’s just another prophet as flawed as the rest of them.”

“Really, Crawly, must you be so crude,” Aziraphale nearly whispered, glancing around as if someone might be listening. But they were out of view of any listeners on the street, having a nice view from this hillside of the few scattered lights still burning in town. He tutted a little. “Speaking of the Almighty like that… you’re going to get into trouble one of these days.”

“Bit late for that, don’t you think?” Crawly didn’t miss the obvious deflection from his question.

“Anyway,” Aziraphale pressed on rather too hurriedly, “I have it on good authority that he is _indeed_ Her son.”

“Oh really? Have you seen him?” Crawly tossed his head toward the stable entrance. “Go on, have a look. So ugly he’s cute, just like all human babies. I’d have thought he’d have some kind of mark or… aura, at least.”

“You mean you can’t feel it?” Aziraphale stared at him in disbelief before tearing his eyes away as if abashed. A grin of—relief? Embarrassment?—was tugging at the angel’s lips, fading into a look of reverence as he gazed toward the stable’s entrance. The sight of it made Crawly’s heart sink for some reason. “No of course, I suppose… I suppose a demon wouldn’t….”

“Wouldn’t what?” Crawly scowled, leaning forward and stepping into Aziraphale’s space.

“Wouldn’t be able to sense….” Aziraphale’s voice wavered for a moment. “Sense _good_ in people.”

“A baby’s a baby!” Crawly rolled his eyes. “They’re _all_ innocent little angels before they grow up.”

“But this one is different,” Aziraphale insisted primly. “You’re just going to have to take my word for it.”

Crawly raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, torn between wanting to continue bickering and wanting to get away from the angel’s insufferable confidence in Them and all the others.

“So you really haven’t seen him yet?” Crawly asked.

Aziraphale blinked rapidly, seeming taken aback. “I… I suppose I could… should pop my head in there for… just a moment. Just to make sure you haven’t meddled.”

“What, you mean switched him out for some other baby? Wouldn’t that be a laugh….” Crawly followed on Aziraphale’s heels, chuckling before putting on a higher, prim, “angelic” voice. “_So sorry, Gabriel, but the Son of God’s probably halfway to China by now—_”

“That’s not funny!” Aziraphale’s voice was hushed; they were getting close to the entrance now and had to keep their voices down.

“You know I’ve always wondered—can _you_ turn into anything? Like a pigeon?”

“Technically a _dove_, thank you very much,” Aziraphale muttered, seeming a little abashed.

Crawly whistled softly. “Didn’t expect to get it on the first try.”

“I don’t really like to, you know. So small, and…_ oh_,” Aziraphale breathed, his face lighting up as he leaned around the edge of the entrance, just enough to see. Crawly barely even glanced at the baby, stunned by the look of something like adoration on Aziraphale’s face. “Oh, Crawly….”

Before Crawly could begin to parse out what Aziraphale meant by calling his name, the angel’s hand came toward his arm and Crawly flinched away instinctively, but Aziraphale just turned and looked at him with wonder

“I wish you—”

Aziraphale’s face fell, as if he suddenly remembered who he was speaking to, and he cleared his throat before turning back toward the manger, that soft look of tender enlightenment slowly easing back into his features now that his hand drifted back down to his side.

“I can hardly believe what is to come,” Aziraphale whispered, every note of quiet hope and excitement hammering an echoing nail into Crawly’s heart. “What he will do to this world. I just know it’s going to be glorious.”

“Yeah,” Crawly mumbled, wrenching his eyes away from the angel’s sweet smile toward the sight of the baby, now nestled in Mary’s arms, who was nestled in Joseph’s, all three of them sleeping. He took a deep breath to try and shake the suffocating feeling. “Can’t wait.”


	2. Chapter 2

Crawly really had meant to get away from it all. Sure, Egypt wasn’t exactly the other side of the world, but it wasn’t Israel either, and he’d had no reason to expect them to show up here. He’d only just started to get used to the local beer, and spent nice evenings walking along the Nile, watching and occasionally joining in games of Senet once he’d caught on to the present-day rule variations.

On this particular morning, he was walking beside a new-ish acquaintance, Khnumet, still getting used to the new look he’d manifested—dark red linen dress, black kohl around his eyes sharp as knives. He was also busy ignoring the judgmental and probably envious glances the other locals in the marketplace always gave his long hair, when he saw someone with even longer hair, sticking out in the crowd of mostly smooth-faced, bald or bewigged Egyptians.

Hebrews… a woman, a man, a baby, and a donkey. In the clean-shaven culture of the Egyptians, so much head and facial hair made them look a little wild, like they’d just spent days in the wilderness—which, Crawly realized, they probably had.

They seemed lost, scanning the crowd not as if searching for someone in particular, but just to get oriented to an unfamiliar place. Crawly’s eyes crawled down to Joseph’s sandaled feet as the man walked alongside the donkey—they were dirty and dark with blisters and scrapes. Both his and Mary’s lips were parched and cracked by the desert winds. They looked like they were about to collapse.

Not very glamorous of Them, to let Their chosen vessel and Son and… brother-in-law? No, that wasn’t right. Step-husband? Whatever Joseph’s title might be—walk around looking like ragamuffins or beggars. The family hadn’t seemed poor from what Crawly had seen of them, but they were certainly bedraggled, and the Egyptians around them mostly averted their gazes, possibly fearing disease.

Khnumet, a woman of some prestige due to her unusual position as scribe, had been a temptation assignment, someone Crawly was supposed to influence to use _her_ influence for evil, but so far all he’d gotten her to do was engage in some harmless hedonism, which, ironically, had been more effective at keeping her out of trouble than anything else.

“You know what I just realized, Khnumet?” Crawly said, pulling his eyes away from the small family of refugees.

“What is that, Tanis?” Khnumet looped her arm through Crawly’s, using the Greek name he’d chosen on a whim for its all-too-accurate meaning. “That it’s about time for another game?”

“That man you’ve been… hosting….”

“Idu?” Khnumet gave Crawly a look that said she saw through Crawly’s pretended ignorance.

“Yes, him! Idu. Awfully eager to learn everything there is to know about being a scribe without actually going to school for it. Why do you think that is?”

“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Khnumet laughed. “Such knowledge would greatly increase his social standing. And he’s trying to flatter me, convince me to bear him a child who will inherit my position.”

“Are you sure he’s not just trying to get you into trouble?” Crawly murmured secretively.

“Trouble? What do you mean?”

“I mean Idu’s not the type to want to stand in someone else’s shadow, not even his own child’s. I’ve heard some of the things he says when you’re not in the room.”

“Like what?” Khnumet’s face darkened.

Crawly wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Rather not repeat it. He’s a man, after all… still a bit put off by being outdone by you, I'd imagine. But do you really want to give him any more material to accuse you with? One of the first female scribes, trying to undermine the entire social hierarchy of Egypt by teaching a mere merchant to read and write off-record? A bit risky to let him keep staying over, in my opinion.”

“Are you saying you want my house all to yourself?” Khnumet asked, but beneath her playfulness was anger, and Crawly knew he’d struck a chord.

“I’m saying I can find you some more interesting tenants.”

“You had better, because I’m about to go have a word with Idu, I think….”

Khnumet released Crawly’s arm, and they parted ways, Khnumet heading for her lovely house upriver where Idu was no doubt enjoying himself far too much, and Crawly heading into the crowd after the conspicuous mops of hair he’d spotted earlier. Hell had told him to turn Khnumet’s influence toward their ends, and he couldn’t very well do that if Khnumet’s influence was usurped by a good-for-nothing git, could he?

Crawly found the little family lingering in the shade of a fruit stand, pretending to look at expensive melons just for an excuse to get out of the heat for a moment. The attendant, a wiry, middle-aged farmer, seemed a few moments shy of telling them to get lost.

“Ah, there you are,” Crawly said, as if he’d known them for ages. “Run into some trouble?”

Joseph gave Crawly a terrified look, shielding Mary and the baby with his body, and Crawly made an impatient noise.

“The eyes are normal where I’m from, you’ll get used to it. Now come on, what’s the hold up? Bring a… a couple of those, a couple of these….” Crawly flicked his wrist toward the melons and some figs impatiently, “come stay at the house a few nights to help me fix some things up, and we’ll call it even, eh?”

Crawly knew the price of a couple of melons and a couple of figs was cheaper than any of the inns nearby, especially when he casually made a passing stranger’s heavy gemstone pendant fall from his camel’s saddlebag into the dust at Joseph’s feet, the pendant’s owner none the wiser.

Joseph stared down at it and then back up at Crawly, perplexed, his face full of the awareness that this could be either a miracle or a trap. He looked to Mary next, some silent conversation passing between them for so long that Crawly had to _actually_ exert some demonic influence before Joseph finally stooped and retrieved the pendant from the dust, turning back around and offering it to the fruit merchant—who Crawly ensured had been too busy to see where it came from.

After a brief, halting exchange at the stand as they bartered, Joseph had the fruit in hand and turned back toward Crawly with an ashamed look and a low voice. “If my first act as a foreigner here is to be marked as a thief, good lady, I can only ask that you excuse my wife and child from any punishment.”

“Can’t really steal something that belongs to _nobody_, can you?” Crawly said dismissively, taking one of the melons so Joseph wouldn’t smash the figs in his effort to hold all four fruits. “Follow me.”

He led them through the marketplace, carefully thinking of how he would word this temptation to his superiors: _talked the messiah’s stepfather into stealing and making a deal with a demon_, technically. That sounded altogether too impressive. And he still wasn’t sure hell knew—or needed to know—about the child in the first place. Better rework the wording.

Free of the thickest crowds, they moved upriver toward Khnumet’s house, just in time to see the back of Idu, scurrying away with a resentful look, his possessions piled into a handcart. Khnumet watched him from the door to her courtyard, as if challenging him to turn back and beg.

“Look, Khnumet!” Crawly waited until Idu was out of earshot before he waved his arms enthusiastically toward the travel-worn trio behind him. “I’ve brought a carpenter and his family to build that table you wanted. It’d be most convenient for them to stay, just for… a night or two, don’t you think? They brought us your favorite melons.”

“Tanis, what table?” Khnumet raised her eyebrows.

“You know, the one we talked about… oh, when was—you _know_ what I mean!” Crawly gave Khnumet a pointed look, and Khnumet blinked her kohl-lined eyes between Crawly and the family with their donkey, and smirked, shaking her bald head.

“Of course, the_ table._ Come in, please. How thoughtful of you to bring such an offering. Would you like something to drink?”

“Yes, please.” Mary spoke hoarsely for the first time since they’d arrived. “That’s very kind of you.”

Crawly beckoned them in through the courtyard gate and into the cooler main room. They left the donkey in the courtyard. Inside, Joseph looked around in awe at the beautiful furnishings, servants scurrying out of the way apart from one who approached bearing two cups of beer.

Just about then, the baby strapped to Mary’s front began to cry.

“Oh….” Mary searched for somewhere to sit, looking to Khnumet as if for forgiveness or permission.

“Please, sit down wherever you like,” said Khnumet, giving Crawly an intrigued look once Mary was occupied loosening her dirty clothes to offer a breast to the hungry baby.

“This is Joseph,” Crawly said, gesturing loosely toward the man before nodding down at the young mother he stood close enough to touch. “And Mary. Mary, Joseph… my friend Khnumet, the scribe.”

“Joseph,” said Khnumet, before either of them could speak. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you the room where I’d like my table, and we can speak about materials and measurements. But first, which of you will bathe first?”

“Oh… Mary, you can go first,” Joseph offered.

“Wonderful,” said Khnumet, already waving a few people forward to pull Mary up off the bench and lead her out of the room. “While my servants bathe you, I will take Joseph to discuss plans for the table. Then we will eat together and discuss wages.”

“Oh—wait, no—” Mary resisted the offered arms of one of the female servants who was reaching for her son. “I—I….”

Her eyes darted around the room, still with something about them that said _child_ in Crawly’s mind. After skimming over the various smooth heads and faces of her Egyptian hosts, Mary’s gaze swept up toward Crawly, pleading. “Please… watch him for me.”

And as the servants turned their full attention onto steering Mary toward the bathing room, Crawly found—despite a few strangled, inarticulate protestations that erupted from his throat and his raised hands of protest—that that loosely swaddled bundle of divinity had been laid down on the smooth stone bench where Mary had been sitting, right beside where he stood.

In two more blinks, Joseph had been whisked away by Khnumet, and Crawly was alone with the son of God. The thought struck him that if he’d actually wanted such a thing to happen, he couldn’t have planned it better himself. But in the same moment, he stood half frozen, demon and Christ-child mutually mesmerized by each other. The baby’s crying over his lunch being cut short had stopped the minute they’d locked eyes—probably purely due to shock, Crawly decided. After all, yellow irises and slit pupils were unsettling enough to most mortals on their own, let alone lined thickly with kohl.

He sat down heavily beside the bundle, careful not to touch it, lest he be vaporized or something. “Well… this just isn’t right at all, is it?”

He’d meant it to come out resigned, unsettled, perhaps even resentful, but instead it came out… quiet, almost sweet, and the baby blinked at Crawly, the spell broken. Jesus squirmed, inhaling to prepare for his next earsplitting wail.

“Oh, no-no-no no, shhh, _shhh_.” Crawly urged quietly, even as one part of his mind thought there must be some heavenly law against shushing the Son of God. How did one comfort a baby without touching it? “Look, I know, you’re hungry—human body, terribly inconvenient, must be, but you’ll get used to it… why don’t you miracle yourself a full belly? Can you do that?”

Could _he_ do that? Better not… demon-miracled milk in the belly of Their kid was bound to raise some alarm bells. Crawly flapped his hands up by his ears, desperate as the wailing grew louder. He huffed and puffed out his cheeks, wiggled his lips and made little popping noises, fish faces, trying to distract the child.

It only worked for a second, the little red-faced God-spawn staring at him as if he’d sprouted actual visible horns. Then, rather than a hungry wail, Jesus cried—horribly sad, tiny, heart-wrenching little baby sobs, mashing his fists against his own eyes.

“Oh, no I didn’t mean it!” Crawly hissed apologetically. “I was just trying to make you laugh… arghhh, it’s not my fault They’ve sent you down here! Down to this mess… They probably have no idea what it’s like, being a human, or a baby. Can’t have.”

He kept his voice soft despite his pleading desperation. The baby’s crying continued, tiny nails grazing a red line on the baby’s cheek by accident as he flailed his little fists. Crawly winced and—for one terrifying moment—nearly reached out to ease the baby’s restless fingers back down before remembering that such an action could quite likely evaporate his entire essence into nothing on the spot.

“Singing! Singing, some kind of lullaby… oh, come on, which—ahh, I think….” Crawly leaned over a little bit toward the babe, old,_ old_ memories of celestial harmonies flashing through his brain like scorching fire. No, no, he couldn’t sing those anymore even if he’d wanted to—couldn’t do harmonies with no one to harmonize with. “Come on… Enochian… ah… Samaritan… Chinese… Babylonian! That old one, right… here goes.” He took a deep breath, the words flooding into his mind, and began to sing, a little loudly at first to be heard over the juddering sobs of the baby.

_The house is dark, a baby cries._

_Oh little one, do you see the sun rise?_

_Why do you scream, why do you weep?_

_You have disturbed the house god's sleep._

Toward the fourth line, the combination of Crawly’s voice and exaggerated expressions seemed to be distracting the child a bit, enough that Jesus at least managed to take more of a substantial breath between wails.

_“Who has disturbed me?” the house god yells._

_It's the cries of the baby, louder than bells._

Here Jesus began to quiet, much to Crawly’s relief, though the sight of the child’s tears rolling down his chubby little cheeks brought flashes of memory—the flood, plagues, wars—that clawed at Crawly’s heart. His voice crackled and he cleared his throat hurriedly to continue.

_“Who,” the house god asks, “who dares_

_with noise like a drunkard to scare me so?”_

He raised his eyebrows high, unconsciously leaning a tiny bit closer to the child’s face. Jesus’ fists had stopped flailing so much now, his eyes no longer screwed so tightly shut that he couldn’t look back at Crawly.

_Oh no, oh no, the baby has scared you!_

_Oh no, oh no, the sleepless house god!_

Crawly put his hands to his cheeks in an exaggerated _oh no_ expression, and grinned with relief when Jesus went silent with a sudden inhale that did _not_ give way to screams. Crawly bobbed his head a little at the next few lines, Jesus’ eyes following the swaying ends of his long red hair as a few locks fell forward over Crawly’s shoulders.

_Now, says the house god, now call the baby._

_Now, says the house god, call the little one now._

The song ended. Jesus’ little tongue moved a bit in his mouth as if still searching for the soft warmth he’d been snatched away from and he gave a shuddering sigh that didn’t seem quite right for such a small baby.

“So… you’re a fan of Babylonian music,” Crawly muttered conspiratorially with half a grin. “You sure you’re the Almighty’s? Because I seem to remember hearing—”

The baby’s chin trembled.

“Oh, oh!” Crawly flapped his hands again frantically before another yowl could break free of the infant’s impressive lungs. “Sorry, more music? More music! Right… ah… I’m sure there’s another verse somewhere. Something like… ahem….”

_Son of God? You look so… wee,_

_wrinkled and red from your head to your feet…_

“Umm….” Crawly stalled, half sung, half whined as he grasped for more lyrics.

_No wings and no horns, no weird-colored eyes._

_Well, isn’t this body a nice surprise?_

Crawly continued to gesture vaguely to the parts of his own body where such things were, or would be if he currently had them. Jesus’ attention shifted from Crawly’s face to his ringed fingers and back again, and he kicked one of his legs as if encouraging Crawly to keep going—or else.

_That old angry house god had better shut up,_ Crawly half-laughed, half-sang, _The Almighty won’t take kindly any insult to Their pup._

“Ooh, that’s blasphemous,” Crawly grimaced, glancing nervously toward heaven, but nothing happened, so he kept singing. “I meant it like a pet name—yagh, _pet_ name—that _wasn’t _intentional… I’m just raking my own coals and brimstone here, aren’t I? Ahem. Let’s move on.”

_Oh, this babe can wail from thirst_

_Only saving the world if you feed him first!_

_Oh no, let’s see, could this baby be human?_

_Just human, just human! No godchild at all._

The words, accompanied by no cosmic clap of thunder or pillar of fire, settled Crawly’s nerves a bit, and seemed to do the same for Jesus, whose eyes were wide now, fixed on him intently. Crawly grinned down at him, wondering if his theory was possibly correct after all.

_Sing to me, demon! Sing, says the baby!_

_Hush, sings the demon, and the… ba-a-by… sleeps._

Unfortunately, the power of suggestion didn’t seem to be very strong with Crawly today, and Jesus looked at him expectantly, eyes rounder than ever.

“That’s all I’ve got I’m afraid,” Crawly said sheepishly. “You should be happy, you know, not every demon would improvise a whole other song just for you.”

But Jesus was not satisfied. He began to whimper, those little fists grasping for something, anything, until—a shock went up Crawly’s neck and he winced as he instinctively jolted backwards. The little one had grabbed the ends of Crawly’s stray locks of hair.

Crawly’s breath caught in dread—not that he needed to breathe. But only a mild tingle came to his scalp, more than likely residual from nearly yanking his own hair out by the roots just now.

“Just a baby,” Crawly wondered aloud. And before he could talk himself out of it, or silence the less cautious inner voice that told him his fears were ridiculous, he reached toward the whimpering baby and eased his hands beneath the blankets that loosely wrapped him, lifting the so-called messiah into his lap.

A warm tingle spread up Crawly’s arms, not painful, and quickly fading.

Crawly took a deep breath, unable to do anything in the face of such frightening absurdity but laugh. “I should be… burst into flames right about now, or… or melted into a puddle of demonic _goo_….”

Crawly eased the hair from his tiny fingers—their hands made brief contact, and at another tingling rush of warmth, something opened in Crawly for a terrifying, breathtaking moment. A memory of when he had fallen, suddenly every atom of heaven rejecting his existence, where before he had simply existed, belonged there, so easily, one part of the All. The weight, the threat of dissolution, was nothing compared to the absence of that feeling, the feeling once so natural it was easy to overlook. He had almost forgotten, tried to force himself to forget, to deny he ever wanted it back. He knew that behind that sense of safety were poison barbs just waiting to catch anyone who strayed even a little, who asked too many questions, thought too many thoughts.

Jesus’ sneeze brought him back to Earth, and at Crawly’s startled look, the baby smiled.

“Oh… here it comes,” Crawly murmured wryly, melodramatic with disbelief at what he’d almost dared to hope. “The end draws nigh.”

Suddenly, he thought about the conclusion Aziraphale had jumped to, seeing him outside that stable in Bethlehem.

“I could drop you right now,” Crawly whispered, still half-expecting to be struck down on the spot for the mere mention of such an idea. But nothing happened, except that the baby’s face scrunched up, his little legs wiggled, and a small muffled noise came from his stomach or elsewhere before he relaxed. “What if that was it? Splat? The end. If you were really Their son, They’d send an angel to save you, wouldn’t They?”

Crawly had meant the bouncing motion to be jokingly threatening, as if pretending he was going to chuck the little proto-God out the window, but as his arms moved the child up and down, little Jesus’ eyes started to look a bit heavy; he stuck his pudgy fist in his mouth and began to suckle.

More of that strange electric sensation spread up Crawly’s arms, too unusual to be attributed to muscle fatigue. Not a normal child after all, but a heavenly being, cradled by a demon.

The baby yawned, his little nose twitching once, and Crawly felt a dreadful helplessness wash over him at the sight, and remembered the other thing Aziraphale had said, about being able to sense good in people. Perhaps Crawly couldn’t. But despite the sensation of holding a being unfathomable, Crawly could not quite convince himself that Jesus was so much more dangerous than any other perfectly ordinary baby. Not yet, at any rate.

“Not much like your other parent, are you?” Crawly murmured, a weakness he’d only felt a few times before wobbling through his elbows and knees. “Can’t really stand the sight of Them. Or more like… They can’t stand the sight of _me._”

Jesus’ little forehead wrinkled, as if he actually understood and sympathized. Crawly huffed a short laugh under his breath at the absurdity of that thought. The worst part was he half believed it.

“Do you have… any idea… what they’d do to me if they saw us like this?” Crawly asked the baby in a low, conspiratorial tone, moving his face dangerously close to the infant’s erratic hands.

A little spit bubble formed on the surface of Jesus’ lips, and he made a strange burbling sound, half raspberry, half exclamation, jerking a fist aimlessly through the air.

“Yes. Exactly. Boo-blubbide-dip.” Crawly attempted a more accurate recreation of the noise afterward, and didn’t realize how he was shaking his head for emphasis until his red hair fell forward again and Jesus caught another lock in his fingers. “Oh, look at _you_. You’ve snared your first demon.” Crawly gave an exaggerated grimace.

Jesus’ eyes began to drift closed, and Crawly realized he’d continued bouncing him gently without thinking. The babe’s little fist didn’t loosen its grip, though, and Crawly had no choice but to stay like that until Mary came back.

…

It was nearly supper time before the four—five of them, counting Jesus—were all in the same room again. Freshly bathed, the family of three sat across from Crawly and Khnumet, Mary and Joseph sampling the fruits the servants had cut up to serve, looking as if they hardly dared to believe their luck.

Mary surprised Crawly by speaking first. “Have we met before?” She was looking directly at him over her slice of melon, Jesus struggling to roll over in the cradle of her crossed legs.

“Not really, why?”

“How did you know our names?”

Joseph looked up between them, silently agreeing that he too had found this unsettling.

“I live on the Nile, I know people, I hear things,” Crawly said casually. “If I’m not mistaken, your son’s birth caused a bit of a stir back in your hometown, didn’t it?”

Mary’s face darkened, her gaze and voice dropping. “I never meant for…_we_ never expected that the news of our son’s birth would cause so much suffering.”

“Suffering?” Crawly stared at her. “Everyone I’ve met’s been singing praises about him; what d’you mean, suffering?”

“It was Herod,” Joseph said, seeming to act on some silent cue from Mary, who was shrinking away with an exhausted look, focusing her attention on her baby and the fruit in her hand. “He gave orders that every boy child in that area under the age of two be killed.”

“What for?” Khnumet looked alarmed. “Was there some sort of plague?”

“I don’t know why,” Mary sighed, sitting Jesus up on her knees to face her as she bounced him.

Crawly dropped his voice. “How did you escape?”

“We were… warned by a friend,” Joseph said reluctantly.

“A friend….” Crawly thought Joseph’s voice had an edge of secrecy to it. Another angelic visitation, then? “And this friend warned you, but not the other parents in the area?”

“Maybe they were warned and did not heed it,” Joseph sighed, rubbing at his forehead.

“Oh, I doubt that,” Crawly scoffed angrily. “Herod’s temper isn’t exactly a secret. I can’t imagine one of your lot hearing he’s about to kill some babies and going ‘no, not good old Herod, such a kind, dear king’! Ridiculous. It would be just like them not to warn anyone else.”

There was an awkward silence at that, and with a pang Crawly recognized the look on Mary and Joseph’s faces all too well. Guilt that didn’t belong to them. Guilt over something they couldn’t have changed. He put a piece of bread in his mouth and prepared to change the subject.

“Well,” said Khnumet softly. “Since your home country is no place to raise a child, you can stay here as long as you need. All I will ask in payment is occasional carpentry work and errands. How does that sound?”

“God bless you,” Mary said fervently. “We prayed the whole journey here that God would provide a safe place for us to stay.”

Suddenly, Crawly felt an intense need to be out of the room. He began to rise to his feet, and Mary lifted her eyes to him.

“What was your name, again, my lady?”

“Tanis,” Crawly said.

“Thank you, Tanis,” Mary said sincerely. “You appeared on the streets to us like a rescuing angel. Without your compassion, we—”

“Don’t thank me,” Crawly interrupted, and hurried out into the courtyard.

It was still hot out, the wall low enough that the sun still beat upon his head even as it dipped toward the opposite bank of the Nile, and when he moved toward the shaded area where the donkey had drifted, the beast shuffled away from him, making nervous little brays.

“At least one of you has some sense,” Crawly muttered resentfully. Behind him, he heard Khnumet talking, but couldn’t make out the words, just her regular diplomatic tone. Perhaps she was covering for his rudeness. “Not an angel,” he muttered. “I’m not s’posed to be _nice_.”

The donkey gave him a confused look and trotted away to the other side of the courtyard, ears back to make sure Crawly didn’t follow.

Crawly leaned forward onto the wall with his arms, staring toward the sun defiantly. “What are you up to?” he sighed, swallowing against a rising pain in his chest. “Wasn’t bad enough to kick me out, now you have to keep getting me into trouble over and over and over? I’m trying to mind my own business here!”

He picked at a loose chip of plaster at the top of the wall and flung it viciously toward the river, further than most humans would have been able to. The splash wasn’t nearly satisfying enough, so he let himself out the back gate and wandered down toward the edge, despite the way the reflected light hurt his eyes.

“Anyway,” Crawly huffed as he chucked a bigger rock into the shallows and miraculously managed not to get any of the resulting explosion of mud on himself. “Anyway, I’m not your servant any longer! You can’t expect me to… rgh.”

But They hadn’t expected him to. He was being ridiculous… if he’d just left well enough alone, surely God would have sent someone else to help Their son and his earthly parents. Or, if They hadn’t helped them, and something terrible happened to the family, then it would just go to show that They didn’t really care about any of them, after all.

As Crawly walked further into the reeds, he noticed a disturbance in the mud at the riverbank. A flint-like snake’s head—but much bigger than any normal snake—emerged from beneath it, dripping.

“_Crawly_,” it hissed.

“Apophis,” Crawly groaned. Another demon was the last being he wanted to see, in general, but Apophis was a wild card, sometimes almost fun, often unbearable. “How many times have we had this conversation? _I’m_ the snake. You have at _least_ two animal forms so I know you’re just doing this to annoy me!”

“Let’s talk about something more important then,” chuckled the snake, lifting more of its body out of the mud. Its mouth lengthened, the flat curve of where the scales met turning to overlapping teeth, until an enormous crocodile grinned up at Crawly. “Dagon is waiting for your report. He asked me to check up on you, since you seem to be hanging out in my territory a lot these days.”

“Your territory?” Crawly wrinkled his nose and peered into the crocodile’s open mouth. “What have you been doing around here anyway? Seems peaceful enough. Love what you’ve done with the place, though I doubt hell will.”

The crocodile lunged and snapped at Crawly’s bare ankles—he only just managed to leap back in time. “How dare you!” Apophis snarled. “It took me _ages_ to convince head office which one of us was responsible for the fall of Cleopatra and all the warring and rivalries leading up to it! That whole mess with the Ptolemies, the fall of pharaonic rule—that was all_ my_ doing!”

“Maybe they wouldn’t have tried to give me the credit if you weren’t such a bad copy of me,” Crawly replied smoothly. “Easy enough to mix up a couple of snakey demons running around this general area of the world, isn’t it?”

“Tell me what you’ve been up to, Crawly.” Apophis’ hissing voice turned to a deep, layered rumble.

“So you can take all the credit and get back at me? No thanks.” Crawly sniffed. “I’ll give the report to Dagon myself.”

“Well, then,” laughed the crocodile, readying itself to lunge again. “Let me help you along! I’ll have you back at head office in a _snap!_”

The massive jaws would have enveloped Crawly if he hadn’t immediately made himself much thinner, though the added length of being a python nearly canceled out any helpful effect the transformation had. He slipped away from Apophis’ teeth by a hairsbreadth and burrowed headfirst through the mud, down, down, suffocatingly down until he landed—belly-flopped, to be accurate—atop Dagon’s file-crowded desk.

“Crawly,” she said, clearly annoyed. “Your report is late.”

“Yeah, sorry,” he wheezed, rolling off her desk to straighten his dress, which had thankfully re-manifested free of mud. “Apophis was just—”

“Next time, come through the main entrance.”

“Right, right, of course,” Crawly coughed. “Look, Dagon, I have a lot to do up there… the Roman occupational forces in Egypt and Judea are already getting things a bit too orderly, you know, and—oh, you’ll love this. Love it. Did you happen to hear about a bunch of kids being murdered recently?”

Dagon, who had barely bothered to look up except to glare at him, finally set down her scruffy ink brush and gave him her full—if impatient—attention. “I’m listening.”

“Oh, well, you know how some kings are, Herod especially… competitive, wants to live forever. Well, I let him believe that would happen if he….” Crawly cleared his throat, pressing his bottom lip up hard against the top one and raising his eyebrows as high as they could go so his face couldn’t make any other expression. “You know. Killed the potential competition.”

“His soul was already considered secured to our side. Is that the best you’ve got?”

“No! No… I mean, after all, think of all those parents,” Crawly said, painfully forcing his grimace toward more of a grin. “The whole lot of them, angry and grieving and ready to curse God for letting this happen?” He tried to move his body, exaggerate his voice and gestures and expressions so it was clear he was mocking those parents, not empathizing.

Dagon pursed her lips and nodded, seeming convinced. She pulled out a scroll and began jotting down a few notes and checking boxes. “Anything else?”

“Ahh, not much,” Crawly said with false humility, wrinkling his nose as he casually kicked a few of Dagon’s files away from where they’d fell on the floor by his sandals. “Just got one of Their most favored to steal an expensive pendant, make a deal with me for protection….”

“One of Their most favored?” Dagon raised an eyebrow at him. “Who?”

Crawly hesitated, Mary’s line about his angelic rescue of them springing to mind. He finally waved a hand and said, “Oh, you know, the father of the next Hebrew prophet or revolutionary or something. Which, uh, he won’t be, once I’m done with him.”

“You play a long game, Crawly,” Dagon said. “Don’t forget the everyday temptations. At least one bad deed every day.”

“Oh, I know. There’ll be plenty of opportunity for those now, though.”

“Hmm… this favored father. What was his name?”

“Joseph something-or-other… or was it John? Jacob? Maybe the kid’s name was going to be John. Well, I’ll get back to you on that.” Crawly casually paced, walking on the rest of the files on the floor, taking pleasure in the crumpling sound.

“Get out of here!” Dagon snapped—both vocally and physically, the motion of her fingers sending Crawly jerking through physical space so that in less than the blink of an eye, the dismal records office of Infernal Headquarters vanished and was replaced by blindingly bright expanses of sand.

“Couldn’t have been a little more precise?” Crawly huffed in annoyance as he took stock of where he was, but even with the windblown sand stinging the backs of his calves, it was a relief to be back on earth. That visit to hell had been one of his shortest yet, and for that, he could only be thankful.

With a sigh, he lifted a hand to shade his eyes and set off on the long walk back to town. Now he’d done it. Gone and committed himself to sticking around this family. Should have just racked his brain for more happenings in Judea, or Greece, or further south in Africa, and run off to follow up and stayed far, far away from whatever the Almighty was planning.

But what if They were planning all of it, all over the world? That was the real trouble. Crawly could never be quite sure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Yes, ancient Egyptians drank beer. Big fans of grain actually. I looked it up... they drank wine too of course but that's more common with higher status. They also avoided having any hair on their bodies for fear of lice.  
2\. The lullaby (the un-improvised part anyway) is a reworking of a [5000 year old Babylonian lullaby](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/magazine/the-melancholy-mystery-of-lullabies.html)  
3\. Tanis is Greek and means "serpent woman". It was too perfect to pass up.  
4\. Crowley is female-presenting here, so I originally wrote it with she/her pronouns in narration. But ultimately it felt better to use he/him because the mismatch between presentation and pronouns represented more of a queer "human pronouns cannot describe me anyway" vibe in-narrative, and it felt less binary than to completely switch over to both female pronouns in-narrative and female presentation.


	3. Chapter 3

Time was still a strange thing to Crawly. The first few days after the holy family turned up in Egypt seemed especially long, filled with hundreds of minuscule choices about how to interact with them, and how to frame those interactions as evil deeds when the time came to report. Those days were full of uncertainty, questions and inconvenient psychological discomfort as Crawly wondered if he had actually set himself up in the worst possible position.

But then time began to run more smoothly, with less thought on Crawly’s part. Life in Khnumet’s house fell into a new rhythm, and Crawly’s days became more caught up in the minutiae of navigating eating routines, of naptimes and playtimes, outings along the river, grocery shopping, shockingly civil political conversations, and mild cultural misunderstandings.

One particularly hot afternoon just before the Sabbath, Jesus—not quite walking yet—was hard at work trying to learn how, cruising along the furniture, completely naked after his bath. Mary shuffled along beside him on her knees in case he should fall, and Crawly sat on the opposite edge of the bench Jesus was braced against. 

“Just look at him go,” Crawly grinned, bending over so Jesus could meet his gaze easier.

The aspiring toddler smiled and gave one of those cooing, panting baby laughs before he began to sidestep faster, twisting his little body to reach for Crawly a few steps too soon. Tiny feet tripped over one another and sent him wobbling toward the floor.

“Oh! Whoops!” Crawly reached out in a snap with both hands to steady the boy, the usual unsettling electric sensation much easier to ignore after these last few months of practice, and they both laughed—actually, all three of them: Mary, “Tanis”, and Jesus. “Now back to your mother!” He turned Jesus around and let go only once he was sure the little one had a good grip on the bench, and Mary clapped her hands before reaching them out toward her baby, grinning.

“Come on, Jesus! Come on!” she called sweetly. “You can do it!”

Back and forth, back and forth, and Crawly wasn’t yet bored, even by the time Joseph and one of Khnumet’s servants came into the room.

“Mary, I’m going with Tef-amen to the market. We need more candles before the Sabbath… do you want to come with me?”

Mary blew a raspberry against one of Jesus’ palms and pretended to eat it, making him squeal. “Well… how long do you think we’ll be gone? It’s going to be Jesus’ naptime soon….”

“I was hoping we could take a walk alone through one of the gardens.” Joseph gave Crawly a hopeful glance. “Have a little time out of the house to ourselves. You just fed him, didn’t you, Mary?”

“Yes, and if he gets hungry, he can have some porridge or fruit.”

“Oh, alright, if you insist,” Crawly jokingly grumbled, sliding off the bench onto the floor to take up Mary’s position as Jesus’ spotter. “You’ll be back before sundown then?”

“Thank you.” Mary looked excited at the simple prospect of some time away from responsibilities. She beamed and kissed Jesus’ head. “Have fun with your Auntie Tanis, Jesus. I love you! You’ll take a good nap for me, won’t you?”

Jesus was focusing hard on where to put his feet, until he saw his mother stand up. Then, a brief indignant cry burst from him, and Crawly picked him up, bouncing him on his lap.

“Here he comes! Here he comes! Badumbadumbadum! The most devilish rebel that ever there was!” Crawly chanted the “temptation” in time to Jesus’ bouncing, and Mary waved with a quietly mouthed_ thank you_ before slipping out the door with Joseph and Tef-amen. “Where did that one doll get off to?” Crawly asked Jesus, during a break from the bouncing. Jesus squirmed and crawled off Crawly’s lap, and Crawly let him go, following him awkwardly on all fours across the floor. That was the only thing about dresses—fabulous aesthetic, but difficult to move in at times. He made a playful growl and started smacking his palms hard against the floor, and Jesus squealed and glanced back at him before crawling faster, laughing, until Crawly spotted the little wooden doll with its strings of bead-hair and diverted his course. “Aha! I found it!”

“Da’ih!” Jesus pointed, and Crawly’s chest did that funny squeezing thing that often happened when kids surprised him.

“What, this? The doll?” Crawly held it out, and Jesus crawled back toward him. Crawly held the doll out for him to take, but Jesus kept on crawling right past Crawly’s outstretched hands and up his knees, reaching for Crawly’s bottom lip.

“Daa’ih,” Jesus repeated.

“Dayihf?” Crawly mumbled inquisitively, lips half smushed together by baby fingers.

Jesus’ eyes lit up and he babbled something entirely unintelligible but highly expressive.

“You don’t say,” Crawly crooned in fascination, once he’d transferred Jesus’ grip from his lips to his thumb. “Da’ih? What on Earth does it mean?”

Just then, Crawly felt—and smelled—something shift, in the same way the air changed when seasons shifted or the rains were about to come. He heard one of the servants outside, talking to a visitor, and something in the cadence of their speech pushed him to scoop Jesus up in his arms and stand, creeping his way carefully toward the front door in such a way that he might glimpse whoever was outside without being immediately spotted in turn.

The burst of sight came a few seconds too late—by the time he recognized Aziraphale, the angel in human form was only a few steps behind the servant, who stepped into the house and said, “Lady Tanis, this man claims to be a friend of Mary and Joseph, here to see the baby. Shall I permit him to enter, or shall I notify—”

“_You? _Cra—T—Tanis, yes?” Aziraphale’s eyes were round as dinner plates, darting between Crawly and the baby in his arms, mouth dropped open in shock. There was a nervous correction of facial expression, but there was no hiding the breathless discomfort in his voice. “W-well, fancy seeing you here… with… with their child, no less. Um.” Aziraphale’s hands twisted, fidgeted, laced and unlaced their fingers restlessly. Crawly had half expected him to start immediately raising a clamor, accusing him of kidnapping. “Might I have a word in private? You could, um… leave the baby with this kind servant here, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Crawly shrugged one shoulder, feigning casualness even as his whole being tensed with curiosity and fear of what Aziraphale was going to say, both to him and to the higher ups. “Mary asked _me_ to watch him, and Tau here has her own work to do. What exactly do you want to talk about?”

“About… ahm….” Aziraphale licked his lips nervously and swallowed, still glancing between him and the baby with a disturbed look. “About what exactly your plans are.” He seemed to take a quick breath for courage before stepping closer to Crawly. “Actually, why don’t you let me hold him?”

Aziraphale held out his hands tentatively toward Jesus, who had already tensed up in response to Crawly’s sudden shift in mood. Remarkably perceptive, babies were, even when they weren’t part God. Jesus turned his face away and buried his hands in Crawly’s hair, his face in Crawly’s neck.

“Mm. Don’t think that’s going to work, angel.” Crawly smirked. Then, arching his brows and taking a deep breath, he turned to Tau and gave a longsuffering sigh. “It’s alright, we know each other.”

Tau nodded solemnly and was about to back off, when Khnumet came through the gate, back from her day’s work as scribe.

“Tanis! Is this your husband?” Her voice was loud with delighted surprise. “You never told me you were married!”

Crawly, stepping out onto the warm flat stone floor of the courtyard in his bare feet, very nearly missed the incredible expression that crossed Aziraphale’s face—equal parts disbelief, confusion, and scandal. The angel even took a hasty step backward. After doing a double-take to soak in the rest of it, Crawly couldn’t help the laugh that burst from him, and in response, he felt Jesus relax, and the little boy lifted his head from Crawly’s shoulder, recognizing Khnumet.

“Oomep!” Jesus greeted her.

“I-I’m sorry,” Aziraphale began with forced politeness. “But there seems to be a misunderstanding. We aren’t—that is to say, she—I certainly have _no_—”

“Oh, don’t listen to him, Khnumet, he’s just easily embarrassed,” Crawly said, grinning and closing the distance between himself and her. “It’s all rather hush-hush, you know. Family trouble. And he likes to tease me, besides.”

“_Crawly!_” Aziraphale scolded.

“There, you see? His little pet name for me—don’t ask where it comes from, though.”

“You—you devil, stop that!” Aziraphale sputtered. “Not another word!”

Crawly laughed. “Oh, shut up. I know you’re just trying to make me laugh.”

“I am not! I am completely, utterly serious right now! I have never been more serious in my entire existence!”

“Aww,” Crawly said sweetly. “Isn’t he such a dear? But we’d better stop being rude now so I can give a proper introduction.”

And Aziraphale’s sputtering died off into utter speechlessness, but he still came closer, the better to hear what they said. Khnumet wore an intrigued grin, watching their “banter”.

“Aziraphale, this my friend Khnumet, scribe to the Augustal prefect, and my most gracious host. Without her, Mary and Joseph and little Jesus here might have run into _trouble_ upon arrival, or at the very least not have it so good. They landed in one of the best houses in the city.” Crawly rocked back and forth as he spoke, half-conscious of the way Jesus’ head was drooping back toward its customary resting place near his shoulder.

“I—I do thank you, for your kindness, good madam,” Aziraphale said, with a small bow toward Khnumet, which she returned with an amused quirk of her lips.

“Well, it was Tanis who convinced me to take them in.”

“O…oh,” Aziraphale said haltingly, casting another troubled look at Crawly before forcing another smile. “Is that so?”

“You’ll have to forgive him, he’s terribly awkward around strangers,” Crawly said to Khnumet in an overly conspiratorial stage whisper.

Khnumet grinned and shifted her attention back to Crawly. “So what does your husband do, Tanis?”

“Oh… he’s sort of a, uh… _religious_ devotee—”

“A doctor,” Aziraphale interrupted testily. “And I’m not her—”

“Doctor too, yeah, some even call him a miracle worker.”

“That’s not funny,” Aziraphale muttered. “My station isn’t something to joke about.”

“Who said I was joking?” Crawly said innocently. “Your powers are perfectly respectable, after all.”

Aziraphale frowned, as if trying to work out some hidden insult in Crawly’s words. But then his eyes drifted to where Jesus was sucking two of his fingers, watching him, and Aziraphale’s expression smoothed into a real smile for a moment. Those little wrinkles around his eyes, like when starlight twinkled and stretched into different directions.

It made it very difficult to keep teasing him.

“Do you have any—oh, no, I’m sorry,” Khnumet cut herself off with a sad look. “I’m sure you must have tried to have children. That’s why you were so drawn to the baby.”

“Oh… yep, barren. That’s me.” Crawly turned back to Khnumet, suddenly unsure he wanted to continue this conversation. “Well, seems about time my _husband_ and I discuss what he came to discuss with me.”

“Oh!” Khnumet opened her arms toward him. “Do you want to—”

“Doesn’t really matter what I want, does it?” Crawly tried to hold Jesus out toward her. To his surprise, Jesus reached for Khnumet immediately, perhaps sensing she was the way out of the sudden tension that had sprung up in the heavy air. “Oh, look at that. Well, d’you mind watching him for just a few minutes?”

“Not at all.” Khnumet smiled as Jesus began to babble to her, grabbing at her earlobe.

“Thanks.” Crawly nodded once at her, then looked at Aziraphale and tossed his head toward the garden around the edge of the house. “After you.”

Aziraphale gave him a cautious look before stepping ahead of him, as if loath to turn his back toward such a devilish being. As well he should be, Crawly reminded himself. But the heavy air seemed to get even heavier as they moved away from the gate.

“Da’ih! Da’ih!! DAaaaiii!” Jesus cried out sharply, followed by a string of intense and urgent babbling.

“_Die?_ Is that what he’s saying? Die?!” Aziraphale hissed. “Is—did _you_ teach him that?”

“Tanis!” Khnumet gasped. “I think he’s calling for you!”

“_I _didn—waiiit—_me?_” Crawly glanced back over his shoulder to see Jesus stretching his pudgy arms out toward him, and it clicked. Just as _oomep_ was Khnumet, _da’ih_ could be Tanis. A very, very rough approximation. Astonishing.

“Yes! It sounds like he’s trying to say your name, doesn’t it? I don’t think he actually wanted you to get that far away.” Khnumet approached to hand Jesus back, and Crawly took him with a creeping grin of disbelief.

“Well… who am I to say no to Jesus?” Crawly said with a dramatic toss of his head, not missing the little tut that came from Aziraphale beside him.

“I tried,” Khnumet offered helplessly, before shrugging and heading inside.

They were alone—or almost alone. Crawly could _feel_ the deep, fortifying breath Aziraphale was taking, and he turned back with a wry twist of his mouth to face him, the funny feeling in his chest still lingering at what Jesus had said.

“Where the _devil_ are his parents, Crawly?” Aziraphale cried, his words tumbling out in a rushing, breathless string. “I’m sure you know what this looks like! I was sent here to make sure they made it to Egypt safely, and instead I find him in the arms of a _literal demon!_ How am I supposed to explain this to Gabriel? If he were here you’d be smite—smi…smitten—before even getting a chance to explain yourself, so I do hope you appreciate the fact that I’d _much_ rather you give me a good explanation for all this!”

Now there was an unpleasant thought. Crawly grimaced at the idea of Gabriel finding him like this, and wondered again how he’d convinced himself it was a good idea to stick around. “Funny,” he said faintly as he paced along the courtyard, circling the angel, “why _isn’t _Gabriel the one checking up? He was—”

“Also, I don’t appreciate that rude joke you made just now! I won’t be party to your schemes to—”

“Rude joke? I didn’t say anything _rude_, you’re the one acting all unfriendly to the person who saved God’s son from having to spend the first year of his life on the road or in some hovel. I just played along because I didn’t want Khnumet to feel embarrassed that she’d got it wrong. Honestly, angel, you don’t have to take it so personally.”

“It was absurd,” Aziraphale said, nearly pouting. Or perhaps it was just a side effect of how his eyes were screwed tight against the sun, hands clasped nervously in front of him, hot breeze fluttering through his white curls and the linen of his white Greek-style outfit.

“That’s _why_ it was funny!” Crawly sighed in exasperation, shifting Jesus to his other shoulder, unsure whether the wiggling meant he wanted down or just wanted a different view.

Jesus gave an unexplained, sudden screech.

“Yegkh! What do you want?” Crawly asked. “Down? Feeling too close to the mean angel? Can’t blame you, know the feeling.” He set him on the ground, only to have him give an angry wail and pull himself up by the hem of Crawly’s skirt. “Well, make up your mind!” He swung him back up into his arms, experiencing the .5 seconds of relief that resulted from Jesus’ thrill at being tossed about, before Jesus decided he didn’t actually like that and began to cry from fear.

“Be careful with him!” Aziraphale snatched Jesus away from Crawly, and Jesus was silent for a second moment of shock before screaming louder than he had the other day when he’d fallen off the bed. “Oh dear,” Aziraphale said, as if Jesus had suddenly turned into a bomb. “Oh dear. Sorry, very sorry.”

Crawly watched in disbelief as Aziraphale turned his back to him and gingerly set the squalling baby on the ground.

“Aziraphale, you can’t just—oh look at him, he’s falling to pieces!”

Jesus was indeed in a fit, throwing himself onto his side in the dirt. Crawly edged around where Aziraphale was standing, and the moment Jesus saw Crawly he gave a wounded squeal and crawled toward him, sobbing.

“Oh, little Godspawn,” Crawly crooned in sympathy, hoisting the woeful, shuddering babe back into his arms. “Look at you, so tired that you’ve finally realized the entire universe is awful. And I’m sure getting snatched up by the big scary angel doesn’t help.”

“I was trying to comfort him.” Aziraphale seemed shaken, one hand clasped in the other near his face.

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t know you, does he? Guess it turns out the devil you know is better than the angel you don’t.” Crawly grinned a little at his own wit and kept patting the baby’s back rhythmically.

“I find it very suspicious that he seems so attached to you. I quite doubt that such a holy child would choose that naturally, _especially _over one of the Lord’s own trusted principalities.” Aziraphale narrowed his eyes at Crawly. “You’ve done something to him, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Crawly shrugged, wincing against the deafening cries in his ear. “Maybe we’ve simply bonded, _husband_.”

“I _demand_ you stop calling me that,” Aziraphale snapped.

“You should thank me,” Crawly said, lowering his voice—though it didn’t take much to let Jesus’ cries cover his words. “I notice you haven’t told the humans who or what you are, which means you don’t want to, and _I’ve_ given you a perfectly good excuse for showing up out of the blue.”

“But-but… it’s _completely_—”

“Why do you care what anyone here thinks?”

“It’s not the _humans_ I’m worried about,” Aziraphale mumbled, glancing around as if they were being watched.

“Oh… right,” Crawly grimaced, trying a different swinging motion when Jesus remained inconsolable. “Well, why should heaven have a problem with us being in the same general area? Isn’t it your job to counter my every attempt to create disharmony and, you know, all those other sins and such? Or are they just worried I’m going to be able to win you over to my side through pure charisma and devilish charm?”

“Isn’t that exactly what you’re trying to do?” Aziraphale tested softly.

“Is it working?” Crawly smirked.

Aziraphale blinked rapidly in consternation and blew out a tight breath. “It won’t work. I won’t allow such a thing.”

“So why worry about what I say? Heaven should believe an angel over a demon’s word, any day, right? Now you’re really going to have to keep an eye on me, I suppose.”

“Exactly!” Aziraphale burst. “What else am I to do when I get wind of something suspicious like this?”

“Yeah… suspicious circumstances, indeed. Even I’m suspicious of ‘em,” Crawly said in a low voice, as Jesus writhed in his arms, threatening to fling himself down onto the dirt. “Hey! I’m trying to rock you to sleep, here. Is this any way for the Son of God to act? I ask you.”

“What do you mean by that? Suspicious circumstances?”Aziraphale paused to watch Crawly finally let Jesus down onto the flat stones of the courtyard, holding his hands for balance. Jesus’ crying petered out as he took off toward the gate and Crawly followed along behind, forcing Aziraphale to trail after him.

“Well, I didn’t _mean_ to get mixed up in all this; I was just here on temptation assignment for Khnumet. Walking along the Nile one day, minding my own business when _these_ three showed up out of the desert looking like they were halfway to human raisins, and Khnumet was like ‘oh, sure, come stay for a few days,’ and a few days turned out to be a few months… I swear I didn’t _plan_ this. It’s almost like God wanted it to happen.”

Crawly let Jesus hold onto the gate, careful to make sure it stayed closed while the baby gnawed and drooled on it and stared at the passersby.

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed skeptically, seeming unsure whether he dared stage another intervention to stop Jesus from licking things he shouldn’t. “You expect me to believe you ended up here by accident?”

“Either that or it was the Almighty’s plan. Take your pick. I came here trying to get _away_ from the little God-larvae. But now he’s here, I decided to make the best of a bad situation.” It was only half a lie. After all, what did God expect him to do but meddle when They plopped a golden opportunity in front him? That was his job.

“Aha! A confession. You admit it—your side—”

“Oh yeah no, no,” said Crawly. “I haven’t told them about any of this.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure they don’t even know he’s a thing,” Crawly said secretively. “Like to keep it that way, if you don’t mind.”

“You… you haven’t told them?” Aziraphale’s eyes widened a bit, then further as he shifted, turning his back to the sun so he could get a better look at Crawly’s face.

“Oh yeah!” Crawly said as if just realizing it. “Must have… slipped my mind somehow.”

“But…” Aziraphale’s voice had taken on a strangely tentative, almost hopeful tone. Crawly waited for the rest of it, but Aziraphale yelped and was suddenly pointing at Jesus, who had reached for a dried bit of manure that had escaped the servants’ notice. “Crawly, that can’t be good for him! Getting all dirty and—and putting things in his mouth!”

“Right, yeah,” Crawly kicked away the bit of manure, and Jesus started crawling after it. “You didn’t think I was actually going to let him eat shit did you?”

Aziraphale clutched at the neckline of his own clothes. “Crawly! Not in front of the child!”

Crawly laughed, shuffling along to keep the manure one kick ahead of Jesus’ reach. “What? It’s just a word.”

“You were letting him lick the gate!”

“It’s good for ‘im, babies are supposed to get messy, it’s how they figure things out.”

“But there are _diseases!_”

“That his dear mummy created. Not a good look if God let him die from one of those, is it? Unless They decide to withdraw any heavenly protection just for making friends with me. S’pose they can always make another baby if this one doesn’t work out.”

Aziraphale stood there with a judgmental frown, until Crawly realized he’d stopped kicking fast enough, and had to clear his throat and quickly pull Jesus up onto his feet before the kid ended up adopting a dung beetle’s diet.

“You really didn’t tell them?” Aziraphale asked quietly. “Why?”

It took Crawly a minute to remember what Aziraphale was talking about. Right: hell, Jesus, fudged reports.

“Ehh, didn’t seem important. Not worth getting roped into a decades-long headache of an assignment, at any rate.” He made a face. “Lords of hell, breathing down my neck, Beelzebub’s flies buzzing in my ear night and day, yshh….” He gritted his teeth and shook his head, leading Jesus toward one of the flowering plants at the edge of the courtyard instead. “Not worth it if you ask me.”

“You… you think your own freedom to gallivant about with high-class Egyptians is more important than deciding the fate of the world?” Aziraphale sounded equal parts relieved and exasperated. Was that the hint of a laugh on his breath? “Well… if all demons are like you then… I suppose I’m… quite a bit less concerned about the state of things.”

“Don’t insult me,” Crawly scoffed, hiding his smile at the way the angel relaxed and traipsed after him into the shade of the grapevines. “I’m one of a kind.”

It was nice under here, stones giving way to soft-packed dirt. Crawly let Jesus grab onto the vines and cruise through them, getting dirty and a little bit scratched but not seeming to mind, too fixated on reaching the nearest fruits which weren’t quite ripe. _Caused injury to an infant._ There was his bad deed for the day, along with _terrorized an angel._

“I’m sure every demon thinks himself one of a kind….” Aziraphale said softly. When Crawly risked a glance through the waves of his hair, the angel had a heart-melting smile on his face. No doubt it was all for the Christ-child, but Crawly found he didn’t care who it was aimed at.

“You must be joking,” Crawly quickly said. “Dreadful lack of originality among the lot, you—you seen one flea infested filthy hell-spawn you've seen ‘em all! Yeah, there we go… didn’t see that one coming.” He held out his hand as Jesus made a face and spit out the sour grapes he’d been chewing. “What’s a demon who doesn’t rebel? Much more likely all the angels left on your side are cut from the same cloth.” He wondered if Aziraphale would take the obvious bait and protest.

“Well,” Aziraphale said in a conflicted voicewhile Crawly offered Jesus a sweeter grape. “You do seem a bit different… but that’s not going to stop me from keeping an eye on you. Or… or someone, keeping an eye on you, at any rate.”

“I already know it’s going to be you, angel,” Crawly said, flicking the sour grape-mush off his hand and straightening before he tossed his hair over his shoulder and looked the angel in the eye. “Guess we’ll be doing this dance forever, eh?” He grinned, thinking of when they’d first met in Eden.

“_Angels _don’t—”

“—don’t dance, I know,” Crawly groaned. “It was a joke!”

“I know.” The angel’s mumble was artificially light. “I was… well… in any case….”

Aziraphale’s mouth and eyes tightened, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do with them, and he looked back down at Jesus, who was busy poking at the mud under the shade of the vine’s bottommost leaves. In the dappled sunlight that made its way through the grape-leaves, the angel’s halo of white curls was a bit less fiery, less blinding.

“I hardly think,” Aziraphale near-whispered, “that less than a dozen meetings over four millennia constitutes enough of a pattern to be worth noting.”

“Any other angels leaping at the chance to come spy on me? Gabriel, for example? You never did say why he isn’t the one following up.”

Aziraphale opened his mouth, then closed it, momentarily thwarted.

Crawly smiled. Aziraphale, he could deal with. Could even enjoy dealing with. Gabriel on the other hand…. _Yegck._

“How,” Aziraphale began tentatively. “Um, how long exactly are you planning on staying in Egypt?”

“As long as it entertains me, I s’pose,” Crawly shrugged, obliging Jesus with another grape when the baby opened and closed his outstretched hand with an insistent “uh! Uh!”

Aziraphale looked worried. “If you want me to believe you have no intention of corrupting him, then… then promise me you’ll leave soon.”

“Did I say that? I never said that,” Crawly said evasively, eyes pulled back down when Jesus clasped onto his knees and required his thumbs for balance again, tottering around like a giggling drunkard. “But maybe… once I’m done with Khnumet.”

“And how long will that be?”

“Depends on how long she insists on being nice,” Crawly said. “Look, Jesus, a locust! Oh never mind, it’s gone already….”

Aziraphale sighed. “I don’t know why I ask… you’re a demon, it’s in your job description to lie… to lead astray.”

Crawly blew out a disgusted little _pff_, which doubled as a means for blowing his long hair away from his mouth—easy to end up chewing it when he was stooped over like this. “Believe what you want, angel, but if this wasn’t supposed to happen, why do you think God hasn’t done anything about it yet?” He spoke with a confidence he didn’t feel.

“Well, I expect She—”

“Did you know about the whole Herod thing? It’s like Moses all over again, only this time They only decided to save the one. No nice little lamb’s-blood-splashing on the doorposts to warn off the destroying angel—who was it, again, on your side, who went ‘round killing all those infants? Uriel? Michael?”

“Azrael. Don’t change the subject,” Aziraphale pleaded in a quiet, uncomfortable voice.

“This_ is_ the subject,” Crawly growled. “Far as I’m concerned. If God’s not going to take care of Their children, then what else do They expect but for them all to turn toward my side?”

“You’re not suggesting those children’s souls were lost?” Aziraphale sounded offended. “I have no doubt they are all well at rest in heaven as we speak!”

“Oh, of course, and that makes it all just _fine _this time.”

“Crawly,” Aziraphale scolded, though with an undertone like a whimper. “I’m not arguing with you about this again. I told you, I’m just following orders.”

“So’m I,” Crawly shot back wearily, not looking at him.

“So… you won’t be following them back to Judea, when they leave?”

“Maybe… maybe not.”

Jesus was now systematically ripping leaves off the nearest grapevine and licking them before dropping them in the dirt. Crawly crouched beside him, and got a face-full of spit-covered grape leaf for his trouble.

“Here, you little monster.” Crawly plucked a tiny dry one and tucked the stem behind Jesus’ ear. Jesus went wild for this, flailing his chubby arms and swatting at his own head until the leaf fell free.

“Crawly.” Aziraphale sighed, in a voice like a weary smile. “I suppose you have always been rather soft for children, but even if your heart is in the right place, you simply have no right to call the Almight—”

“_Soft?_” Crawly’s head snapped toward Aziraphale, and his hand froze in his absentminded stroking of Jesus’ silky hair—combined with the constant prickle of holiness, it had been providing a strange but helpful distraction from the tension in the rest of his body.

“Well…?” Aziraphale lifted an open palm toward him. “Look at you. Not very demonic, at least on the surface. But perhaps that is simply the effect this child will have on the universe.”

Crawly arose smoothly, quietly to his feet, a rearing serpent, uncoiling, hissing against the pain that roared to life in him at the accusation. “I am a _demon_. My every action is evil! I am insidious and devious and corrupt enough to be cast out, and I am_ not _going to sit here and lap up your _angelic mercy _while you look down from the clouds with that smug, smirking—”

“_Smirking?_” Aziraphale gasped, looking hurt. “I don’t smirk!”

“Your voice was smirking, just now.” Crawly forced a laugh of scorn. “Don’t fool yourself, angel. I’m not doing this for selfless reasons, or out of loyalty to anyone. I’m not capable of that.”

“Oh…I suppose you’re right.” Aziraphale had the gall to droop a bit. “Well, I suppose I shall know soon enough,” he thought aloud. “You wouldn’t follow them home unless you _were _planning on doing something fiendish.”

“What sort of fiendish things you have in mind?” Crawly muttered sullenly.

“I’m not about to give you ideas.”

“Good. Probably wouldn’t be any good anyway. Or any bad, I mean. You know what I mean.”

“Well…”Aziraphale said, a peculiar mix of smugness and shyness in his voice. “It’s just as you once said, you know… I’m not meant to do the wrong thing. It’s against my nature.”

The reference to the garden surprised him, and Crawly bit his lip to try and suppress the incredulous smile that was forming there. For a truly berserk moment, he teetered on the edge of asking the angel straight out if he had come here purposely, knowing Crawly was at large, even seeking him for his own reasons. But no—Aziraphale had acted shocked enough at seeing him.

“You _are _different,” was what came out of Crawly’s mouth instead. “I like you.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale stared at him mouth dropped open a little in realization. “Oh, I assure you, that is _not_ a sign that your demonic influence has any power over me. None whatsoever.”

Crawly let himself grin then. Made sure it looked properly devilish.

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed. “And I really do think it would be better for both of us if you kept your distance from the child.”

“Oh alright… right… yeah, I know,” Crawly said, his distraction half feigned, half real: Jesus was rubbing his eyes tiredly all of a sudden, getting dirt in them and crying. Crawly blew out a long breath. “Better not dawdle around here much longer in your holy presence, lest I be _smitten_.” He scooped Jesus up into his arms and headed inside to clean him up again before his nap, trying to think how he could prolong this brief release, this lifting of weight off his spine. Aziraphale followed him like an inverted shadow. “You know… Khnumet has a… pretty impressive stock of wine. Have you tried it?”

“Oh… I… I’m not sure I….”

“You’ve got to, you’ll _love_ it!”

“Well I suppose just a sip wouldn’t hurt… the humans really do come up with the most incredible things to eat and drink, don’t they?” Enthusiasm quickly gathered in Aziraphale’s voice, and Crawly marveled at how easily he’d accepted his halfhearted “agreement” to keep his distance. “Have you tried those little sweets they make out of tiger nuts, dates, and honey?”

“Can’t say as I have.”

“Well, before you leave Egypt make _sure _you try one, it’s absolutely delicious. Actually, I could—”

“Sorry—Aziraphale, would you mind?” Crawly held Jesus out toward the angel. “He’s not going to like me pouring water in his eyes.”

“You—you want me to take him from you after all? Are you sure?” Aziraphale looked simultaneously frightened and thrilled.

“What? No, just—of the two of us you’ll get in less trouble if _you _miracle away the dirt, right?”

“Oh. Oh, yes, of course.” Aziraphale clapped his hands and beamed as the dust burst off the child’s body as if he were a rug that had just been thwacked. “There! All better.”

“Thanks,” said Crawly, halfway to a sneeze. He noted that even the mild scratches from the grapevines were gone. Well, hell didn’t need to know.

Jesus rubbed at his eyes again a moment more before he slumped against Crawly’s chest, exhausted from his squalling, now just a faint whining grumble coming from the back of his nose.

Crawly paced around the house, awkwardly reaching for the jug of wine before Aziraphale noticed and got it down himself. The angel poured them each a cup while Crawly tried to lull the baby to sleep.

It was only once Crawly had carefully set the sleeping babe on the bed that Aziraphale spoke, oh so quietly.

“Crawly,” he whispered. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Mm?” Crawly made a shooing motion and they both crept out of the room before speaking again. “What of?”

“Of what to tell _them_, when they ask.” Aziraphale picked up a cup from the low table where he’d set them and offered it to Crawly.

“About what?” Crawly feigned ignorance and took a sip of the wine, pleased when he saw Aziraphale swallow his own sip and raise his eyebrows in approval.

“About all of this.”

“You came to check on the baby, and you found him, safe and sound, right? You even drew a demon from the home where he was staying… essentially.” Crawly tilted his head with a sour twist of his mouth and took another sip.

“I… suppose I could put it that way,” Aziraphale said, relief and uncertainty in his voice. “But wouldn’t it be better to just tell them everything? I mean, what if they find out? They would think I was… obfuscating.”

Crawly nearly choked on his drink trying not to laugh. “I don’t think that’s the right way to use that word.”

“Bending the truth, then.” Aziraphale looked distressed at hearing himself say it. “Perhaps if I told them all of it? That you haven’t seemed to cause any harm to Her child. Then neither of us would be in trouble.”

“Really? Neither of us? You think the Infernal Forces are gonna be happy I’m up here singing lullabies to the Almighty’s literal offspring? Anyway, you said it yourself: you don’t know what I’m up to. What kind of… demonic designs…I might have in mind.” Crawly let his voice lower sullenly—or mysteriously, if Aziraphale preferred—toward the end and downed half his cup of wine. “Best not to speculate, isn’t that your motto? If you told them much more, they might permanently assign you to observe me or something.”

“Hmm. That really is quite good, isn’t it?” Aziraphale said, suddenly eager to change the subject again. “This is quite a cut above the last wine I had. Would go delightfully well with those tiger-nut sweets I told you about.”

“You’re not going to shut up about it until I try one, are you?” Crawly grinned.

“I’ve only mentioned it twice,” Aziraphale huffed.

“So far,” Crawly chuckled, pouring more for both of them.

Khnumet came out of the bathing room just then, walking cautiously. “Babe’s asleep?” she whispered.

“Last I checked,” Crawly said, glancing toward the room.

Khnumet came closer and raised her voice a little. “I’m glad you’ve made yourself at home, Doctor! Would you like some plums?”

“Oh, I’m—I’m not staying long, but that’s very kind of you.”

“Not even staying one night? I’m sure you and Tanis have been missing each other.”

“Ah, well….”

“Go on,” Crawly interrupted, grabbing two plums from the bowl from the servant who’d seemed to magically materialize. He held one of the quickly-softening fruits out to Aziraphale. “Just a bite. Look, it’s perfectly ripe. Can’t get plums like these just anywhere.”

“Thank—” Aziraphale began, fingertips nearly touching the plum’s dusky skin, before a strange look came over his face, and he lowered his hand. “Thank you, but… could I pick one from the bowl myself?”

A huff of disbelief, almost a groan, broke from Crawly’s chest as he realized the unintended symbolism Aziraphale had picked up on. “Really, angel? It’s not even an apple.”

Aziraphale cleared his throat and gingerly picked up a different plum from the bowl the servant offered. “Thank you, my dear,” he murmured quietly to the servant, and took a bite, closing his eyes in a show of savoring its taste, but Crawly was sure the true reason was so he didn’t have to deal with Crawly’s exasperation.

“So? How is it?” Crawly half-grunted, when Aziraphale finally opened his eyes.

“Very good, thank you.” Aziraphale made a point of smiling at Khnumet instead of Crawly, and Crawly rolled his eyes, turning back to his drink. “You were right…they are perfectly ripe.”

“I wasn’t the one who grew that apple tree, you know,” Crawly sneered. “Had nothing to do with its…enlightening juices. That was all your lot.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever eaten an apple,” Khnumet said, settling on a cushion between them. “What’s it like?”

“It’s a kind of foreign fruit,” Aziraphale explained. “The best ones are quite crisp, though the softer varieties can also be delicious when they’ve been cooked….”

“You mean _you’ve _eaten one?” Crawly burst, smacking a hand on the table before he could stop himself.

“Well of course I have!” Aziraphale sounded almost defensive. “They’re all over the place to the east, you know. Perfectly normal apples, grown on perfectly normal trees.”

“You are unbelievable,” Crawly sighed, cursing himself for the way it came out sounding almost fond. But when Khnumet smiled, he reminded himself that there was a purpose behind it.

And when Aziraphale raised his cup for another sip of wine, he wondered if he imagined the tiniest hint of a real smirk at the edge of the angel’s mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Egyptian children apparently rarely wore clothes before puberty. Thus, the lack of comments on Jesus running around naked. Also they didn't really have diapers; a lot of ancient civilizations carried around pots for their babies to go in when they needed to or practiced watching for their infants' signals and training Pavlovian reactions into them with whistles or other signals (this method is still used today in some cultures).
> 
> Things are pretty quiet out there. Please please leave comments if you enjoy this!! Thank you!!!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite chapter so far... stargazing and other conversations.

There was still around an hour of daylight left when Crawly came back from his fifth time checking on Jesus (who was still miraculously napping) to a nearly-empty room, their drinking cups scattered about the table. Confused and the slightest bit tipsy himself, he shuffled aimlessly through the house until he heard voices coming from the library. 

Khnumet’s private library was fairly impressive as such things went, one full wall covered with shelves of neatly-rolled papyrus scrolls. Crawly hadn’t personally looked at any of them, though he remembered Khnumet had mentioned in his first tour of the house that one of the shelves was solely dedicated to her family history. 

Now, as he entered, Aziraphale was bent over a table, hands clasped near his chest as if in prayer, reverently perusing one of the larger scrolls which was being held open with delicately sculpted Anubis paperweights. The look on his face was not so different to the wonder in his eyes when he’d first looked at God’s Son. 

“Oh, Crawly!” Aziraphale gushed when he noticed Crawly coming into the room. His hands swept over the surface of the papyrus, but didn’t touch. “Look at this! Khnumet has one of the _only_ surviving copies of a mathematical treatise that burned in the Library of Alexandria. Do you have any idea how precious is this? You might have told me there was such a treasure hidden in this house.” 

“Your husband’s enthusiasm for script may actually surpass my own,” Khnumet commented wryly from where she was looking through another shelf.

“But your collection is amazing!” Aziraphale said fervently. “And all the work, the _hours _that your family must have spent writing and copying and cataloguing this! It’s a feat unto itself, I must say. You should be very proud.”

“I am equally impressed that you know to appreciate it,” Khnumet replied. “You are an unusual man, Aziraphale.” 

Aziraphale beamed at her, cheeks nearly glowing with pretended bashfulness, before turning expectantly toward Crawly. “Aren’t you going to come look?” 

Crawly leaned dramatically against the edge of the doorway with a lazy grin. “And what makes you think _I_ can read that?”

He’d meant it as a joke, but Aziraphale’s face immediately flashed such a soft, sympathetic expression that Crawly’s whole body gave a weird lurch and immediately stood up straight, ready to withdraw from any show of pity.

“Oh, well, then I’ll just teach you, obviously,” Aziraphale said brightly, as if it was obvious. Crawly found himself wondering if he’d imagined the previous facial expression.

“That—there’s no need for all that,” Crawly weakly protested, folding his arms and shaking his head perhaps a bit more than was needed. “Anyway it’s just numbers—not really _reading_, is it?” 

“Well of _course _there’s reading involved,” Aziraphale said, scooting over on the stool which certainly was not supposed to hold two people, and patting the slim open space. Just how scrawny did Aziraphale think he was? “Just come look, won’t you? They’re ever so clever, humans. They even found a way to incorporate the position of the stars into their architecture! Using maths! See?” Aziraphale pointed to what appeared to be a diagram of a temple, various lines radiating out from its windows at different angles, connected to labeled dots.

“The position of the stars?” Crawly scoffed and moved forward despite himself, standing near Aziraphale but not sitting down. “What do they know about stars? They’re all billions of lightyears away. Couldn’t possibly make a long enough measuring stick to—oh….”

As he leaned over, he realized what he was seeing. Angles, formulas—a rough approximation of an understanding of the universe he would never have guessed the humans had an inkling of, fixing the location of this temple, its windows, rooms, and portals, in a specific position relative to its trajectory through time and space, all so certain stars would align at certain times of year. What did they know of the stars but that they were tiny lights high above? What did they know of the stars except that they moved throughout the night—except when they didn’t, and the ones that didn’t could be used as reference points? They didn’t know the beauty of a nebula, or of a newborn star, or of a supernova. They didn’t know the glory of creation as only an angel could experience it, in the act. 

Somehow, though, there on the papyrus, Crawly saw_ his_ creations—named, given meaning, revered… by humans. 

Thuban. The old pole star, now supplanted by Polaris. Crawly touched the mark on the papyrus lightly, barely paying attention to how he was leaning into Aziraphale’s space, leaning _over _him to unroll the papyrus a bit more and read the description of the constellation Thuban was set within. Its first name was the dragon, or great serpent. 

Of course it was.

Crawly frowned at the other dots connected to Thuban, recognizing the many binary stars he’d set in the cosmos. Orange, blue, yellow, white—simple names of colors didn’t do them justice, the way their light and power blended together, waves and particles crossing each other, spreading out into the expanse of space.

“Um, Crawly, if you please….”

Aziraphale’s voice broke into Crawly’s trance, and he realized he was nearly draped across the angel’s lap, legs and spine curved at a weird angle, his face too close to the table. 

Khnumet was laughing at him, a dried reed smacking threatening into her open palm. “The only reason I haven’t slapped you for smearing your hands over the scroll so carelessly is that I had to wonder what would happen next if I said nothing.”

“Sorry.” Crawly gave a muffled grunt of embarrassment and stood up properly, moving around behind Aziraphale to a better position where he could finish reading the description, careful to only give the briefest glance to the angel beside him.

Aziraphale was watching him with the tiniest shadow of an amused smile creasing the edges of his mouth and eyes. 

There were notes about different myths about dragons and great serpents from around the world. The Greek one about Lagon caught his eye, and he took a sharp breath, making a funny face at it.

“Look at this, angel. Greek story: Lagon the dragon’s got to guard a tree in a garden with golden apples on it. But then some idiot named Heracles comes along and kills him so he can steal the apples, poor bastard.”

“Yes… the poor beast,” Aziraphale said, sounding genuinely sad. “That was dreadfully rude of Heracles. After all, Lagon was just doing his duty.”

“And look, this one’s nearly the same story, but more recent. Great goddess Minerva tosses a dragon what picked fights with gods into the sky and he gets—gets frozen over the north pole and that’s why those stars don’t move as far.” Crawly squinted down at the paper in consternation. “How creative.” 

“W… well, they’re not all like that,” Aziraphale hedged. “I mean, there’s a version of the story where the dragon did his job well and was _rewarded_ with his place among the stars. Not punished at all.”

“Is there any version where the snake got to eat the apples instead?” 

Aziraphale laughed, a strange self-conscious laugh that trailed off, muffled into his hand. “Umm. Hm. There’s this one, but it’s completely different. Four mother camels, guarding their baby from two hyenas.” Aziraphale pointed at each of the dots representing the stars. Crawly blinked down at the soft, rounded angles of the angel’s fingers. “And these three here are the nomads, nearby, and their cooking fire.” He smiled up at Crawly. “Isn’t that wonderful? It doesn’t have to be about a snake at all.”

“But I am a snake,” Crawly said before he could stop himself (must be all the wine he’d been drinking), and Khnumet cleared her throat loudly. 

But not before Crawly saw Aziraphale’s smile falter, interrupted by something like fear.

“I think I hear the baby waking up,” Khnumet said pointedly. “We can look at more of these when we’ve all sobered up a bit.” 

“Right, right, of course,” Aziraphale said, turning his attention to rolling up the scroll. 

Crawly sauntered out of the library and toward the bedroom where he’d left Jesus, only to run into Mary and Joseph on the way. 

“Tanis, how was it?” Mary asked. 

“Good, great,” Crawly said, breath catching in a funny way on the inhale. Not quite a burp. “Been sleeping since… since… oh I don’t remember, but it must’ve been at least an hour ago.”

“Oh _that’s_ good news,” said Mary gratefully. “I hope he’s hungry.” 

“Didn’t eat much more than dirt and… and grapes, so he should be,” Crawly mumbled, leaning against the wall as he followed them toward the bed Jesus was getting dangerously close to rolling off of. “Good shopping trip, Joseph? Get lots of nice candles?” 

“Oh… yeah, but it took longer than we thought. The merchant we bought them from last time didn’t have the same stock.” 

“Outrageous,” Crawly grumbled. “What is the world coming to? Can’t even get good candles anymore.”

“Shall the servants and I finish the preparations, Mary?” Joseph called into the room, where Mary was already busy feeding her baby.

“Yes, he should be done eating before it’s time to light the candles.”

Oh, that’s right, Crawly remembered. Shabbat was about to start.

“Is there anything I might help with?” Aziraphale’s voice came from much too close to Crawly’s ear, and he turned around a bit too fast as a result, staggering. “Oh! I’m sorry, Crawly, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Frighten me? Frighten _me?_” Crawly didn’t know why he was laughing. “An _angel_, frightening a dem—”

“That _was _a fascinating story Khnumet told us in the library, wasn’t it?” Aziraphale stepped past him toward Joseph. “Hello, ah, my name is Aziraphale, and I’m a friend of… well, an acquaintance, of Khnumet’s friend here—”

Crawly’s weird laugh, so difficult to control, turned into a groan. “We’re married, Aziraphale, that’s the story, for the devil’s sake get it straight.”

“Right.” Aziraphale coughed and scrunched his nose in an exaggerated way before giving a stiff smile. “Married. Yes. Delighted to meet you both. I was just about to ask if I might assist with the Sabbath preparations?” 

“Oh… both of you?” Joseph asked, glancing between Aziraphale and Crawly. 

“Sure, yeah, I’ll tend the stove or something,” Crawly waved a hand.

“No, I—she—“ Aziraphale fumbled. “My wife isn’t—”

“What, not worthy?” Crawly guessed, flushing with some confusing stew of sensations.

“Well, no.” Aziraphale’s voice was soft, and Crawly’s temporarily impaired brain took too long deciding if the no was supposed to agree with or cancel out the previous statement. While he stood there working it out, Joseph and Aziraphale awkwardly retreated into the kitchen, leaving Crawly alone with Khnumet just outside Mary’s door. 

“I see what you mean about family troubles,” Khnumet murmured sympathetically, clapping him on the shoulder. “Religious differences can be difficult to navigate.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,”Crawly said in a long, drawn out sigh. “I’m going to get some air.” 

Outside, the sun melted into the western horizon like a blinding pad of butter, but Crawly stayed in the shadows cast by the house and kept his back to it this time, looking instead toward the opposite end of the sky. This city wasn’t really a metropolitan crossroads like Alexandria, so most of its inhabitants strolled along the nearby streets with little concern that night was approaching, signaling the beginning of a Sabbath they didn’t keep. 

A truly feeble streak of cloud hovered like a window-smudge in the sky to the east, and caught a few of the warmer colors of sunset, shifting gradually. Crawly listened to the sounds of voices and feet passing: camels, humans, donkeys, dogs. Some sharp and cutting, some soft, some angry. Wheels of carts rattling and rumbling. The weighty background presence of the Nile. And the smells… so many smells, more than half of them awful.

He couldn’t tell if the world was beautiful or ugly. A mess, with little bits of beauty—but was it a beauty spoiled by the mess, or a mess uplifted by the beauty? The garden had come first, after all… paradise. Until he’d asked questions. 

The color on the cloud faded out, the contrast of shadows and light between the buildings dimmed and blurred, and Crawly heard another set of footsteps behind him. If it weren’t for the subtle, heavenly smell on the lukewarm breeze, he would have thought they belonged to a servant and paid them no mind.

“I thought you were helping,” Crawly muttered without turning around, something heavy coiled in his chest. 

“They didn’t really need very much help, after all,” Aziraphale said, and the tone of his voice suggested he might have embarrassed himself somehow. Normally, Crawly might have wheedled him to find out what it was, but he couldn’t summon the energy. What was wrong with him today? Instead, he kept his eyes fixed forward, where Vega had shyly begun to glimmer. 

Behind them, the voices of Mary and Joseph blended in faint blessing… _our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth…. _

“Actually, I haven’t been quite honest,” Aziraphale finally mumbled. “I think we really shouldn’t have left such a mess for them to clean up. The servants and I barely finished in time. They wouldn’t let me do it alone, they were _watching_ me, so I couldn’t even miracle it all back the way it was supposed to go!” 

“Aw. Pity I wasn’t there to help you,” Crawly sighed. “But oh, that’s right, my presence would have sullied the Lord’s holy day. Night. Whatever.”

“I could have used your help, actually,” Aziraphale said in a small voice. “Should have asked for it….” 

“Oh really?” Crawly finally looked at him. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Aziraphale sighed. “You made the mess as well as I did; it’s only fair.” 

“Then why didn’t you ask?” 

Aziraphale stuttered at this, making a small series of distressed, inarticulate sounds that Crawly was hard-pressed not to laugh or at least smirk at. But he controlled himself, too curious about what Aziraphale would say to tease him and let him off the hook. 

At last Aziraphale admitted it. “I didn’t think you would… after what I said….” 

“What you said? Did you say something that would have upset me?” Crawly feigned ignorance. “Worried about hurting the feelings of a demon… I don’t think that’s your job. Anyway, you didn’t say anything untrue, did you?”

“Well, when you put it that way… I suppose it is a bit silly.” Aziraphale gave a nervous laugh, leaning forward on the wall beside him and following his gaze to where Mars was now just barely visible. “Next time will be different, then.” 

“Next time?” Crawly hadn’t meant to say it in such a hopeful way. 

“Yes, if—if there should ever happen to be a next time, I mean. If we were to make another mess like this, on the eve of the Sabbath, I would ask you for help cleaning it up.”

What was his face doing? Crawly tried to stop smiling, but he couldn’t be sure he’d succeeded—his face felt all fuzzy and tingly from the alcohol, after all—and so he put a hand over his mouth, raised his eyebrows and merely muttered a wry “Amen.” 

“Sorry, what was that?” 

“Nothing.” Crawly cleared his throat. 

From the house, Mary and Joseph’s voices rose in quiet song, the one zemirot they always sang every Shabbat. _Welcome, ministering angels, angels of the most High, from the Supreme King of Kings, the Holy One, blessed be He._

_Enter in peace, angels of peace, angels of the Most High…._

It was really a shame the melody was so beautiful. Crawly could never help but listen to it, no matter how much it depressed him. 

“Sure you don’t want to go back inside, angel?” he said softly. He looped his pinky finger gently through a coiled tendril of vine that was creeping up the outside of the courtyard wall. “Would probably be the first time an actual angel takes them up on their invitation.” 

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Aziraphale said. “This day is for them, not for us.” 

Us. But of course, Aziraphale was probably referring to himself and other angels of the non-fallen type. 

“Did you know Thuban was one of mine?” Crawly asked, as casually as he could manage. 

“I beg your pardon?”

“One of the stars I made… you know, before.” His heart was in his throat at the thought of _before_, but he tried not to let it affect his voice. “Actually most of that constellation we were looking at in there. Have you ever been to Athebyne? Alkaris?” He tipped his head back to find them in the sky. “I was especially proud of those two… _four_, technically, but… two for most intents and purposes.”

“Can’t… say I have, no,” Aziraphale nearly whispered, sounding troubled. “Sorry, did you say you… _you_ made them?” 

“Course I did. What about you, which ones did you make? Canopus? Sirius? The Pleiades?” 

Aziraphale was silent for a moment, hands clasped atop the wall, eyes cast upward, mouth slightly open in a strangely lost expression. 

“I don’t think they’re visible from earth,” he finally said, sounding regretful. “Most of them are in another galaxy altogether.” 

“Oh. That’s too bad.” Crawly found he meant it. He’d been curious, as ever. 

“I suppose you _would _have made some of these.” Aziraphale spoke quietly, as if half to himself. “It’s just… I’d forgotten you were there, in the beginning. Before the beginning. You’ve never mentioned it before.”

“Didn’t think there was any point. Common knowledge, isn’t it?” Crawly sighed quietly through his nose. “Have the hosts of heaven really forgotten already?”

Mary and Joseph were still singing, Jesus too, in his own wordless way, while a stringed instrument had joined them, perhaps one of the servants listening in from another room and daring to accompany the song from a distance. The combination was such a tender and lovely sound, Crawly could barely stand to hear it, feeling as if something inside him might burst out any moment. 

Was this going to be his first time throwing up from drinking? He hadn’t really drunk that much… didn’t make sense. 

_Go in peace, angels of peace, angels of the Most High, from the supreme King of Kings…._

“I don’t think we’ve… _forgotten _forgotten,” Aziraphale murmured. “Just… put it from our minds.” 

“Right,” Crawly breathed, feeling rather empty all of a sudden. “Out of sight, out of mind.” But God was all-seeing, all-knowing. So what did that mean for him?

If only this idiotic tightness in his chest would go away. All at once he slumped onto the wall, which was just a bit too tall for him to lay his head on and touch the ground with his knees at the same time, so he ended up draped halfway over it instead with a groaning sigh, trailing his hands through the creeping vines on the other side. 

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale asked in alarm. 

“Fine,” Crawly grumbled. “Bit of a drag’s all, Shabbat. Can’t be in the presence of _that which is holy_ n’… so on. Might just sleep through it this time around.”

“You know, there’s something I don’t quite understand,” Aziraphale fretted. “If your unholiness isn’t threatened by even direct physical contact with the holiness of God’s child, then shouldn’t that mean it’s going the other way ‘round, and your_ un_holiness is corrupting him? But I can’t seem to sense any such thing happening.”

“Oh… yeah, funny thing… thought so too but it’s just, get these sort of zaps, like—_bzzt, wghaa_—every time. Mleh… got used to it after a while.”

“Zaps? What do you mean, zaps?” 

“I mean like—zap! You know, like sort of a burning, tingly feeling, like… like….” Crawly pushed himself back to his feet, struggling to think of a good comparison. 

“But that sounds dangerous!” The fear in Aziraphale’s eyes put what little was left of Crawly’s comprehensible thoughts grinding to a halt. 

“Psh,” Crawly said.

“No!” Aziraphale cried, as if _Psh_ were an actual argument. 

“Didn’t say anything. No what? No _psh?_”

“I’m telling you, any more contact between the two of you is a terrible idea! I should have taken the baby from you the moment I saw him in your arms.” 

“So why didn’t you?” The question had been rolling lazily around in the back of Crawly’s brain all afternoon. He turned and pushed himself up to sit on the wall, facing Aziraphale, bare feet dangling. 

“I….” Aziraphale sighed at the courtyard wall. “I don’t know.” He suddenly looked so sad and ashamed that Crawly’s stomach twisted. But next thing Crawly knew Aziraphale was turning a worried look on him. “Don’t you think you’re a bit too inebriated for that to be safe?”

“What, holding the baby? I’m not. He’s inside.”

“No, I mean… sitting on the wall.” 

“It’s not that tall,” Crawly scoffed. “_Amazing_ what little things you can find to fret about. Come on, see for yourself.” He patted the wall and scooted over, though there was already plenty of room on either side of him. 

Aziraphale seemed about to protest, then thought better of it, and hoisted himself up beside Crawly, both of them facing west now, where the horizon still glowed a dull turquoise. The temperature had dropped, and Joseph and Mary had moved on to other prayers, blessings for their son, and so forth. 

“I’m going to have to stay here until I can make sure you’re out of the picture,” Aziraphale murmured.

The breeze was turning cool. It had hit that finely balanced point of feeling refreshing but not chilling, yet. Crawly half-closed his eyes and turned slightly to face it, let it blow his hair free of his face. “What here d’you mean?” For a moment, his imagination assaulted him with the idea that the angel could have been given a charge from heaven to eliminate him. As laughable as that image was when paired with the soft-spoken angel beside him, Crawly couldn’t altogether dismiss the possibility that Aziraphale might try to follow such a command. “Here on this wall? Here on earth?” 

“I mean this house, of course. This city.” 

“Oh.” 

It made sense to leave. Staying would only mean trouble, for both of them. But Crawly’s thoughts, uninhibited, ran down silly paths, paths that said that it wouldn’t be so bad to have more company, if he could just convince Aziraphale not to draw too much attention from either heaven or hell.

“Fair enough. We can stick around, keep each other in check until the boy and his parents leave town. Call it a holiday for both of us.”

“That depends on how long they plan to stay.” 

“Mm.” Crawly tilted his head in grudging acknowledgment. “They haven’t said.” With Herod still on the throne, it could be a long while yet.

Aziraphale said nothing more, hands folded loosely in his lap, scanning the heavens. Crawly couldn’t be sure whether it was his imagination or not, but it struck him that something about Aziraphale always seemed uneasy, and tonight it lingered like a sad mist around the angel, constant and background as the chittering hum of the grasshoppers.

Of course he was uneasy, Crawly realized with a sting, thinking of the times Aziraphale had truly smiled today, at Jesus, at the papyrus scrolls. Aziraphale was uneasy because of _him_. Because he was in the presence of the unholy, the demonic. The evil.

“What do you like best in the world?” Crawly asked.

“What?” Aziraphale’s reverent stargazing faltered, and he blinked at Crawly. 

“What earthly thing makes you happiest? Scrolls? Sweets?” 

“Why should I tell you?” Aziraphale frowned at him, but it was more like he was frowning at himself. “You’d only use it to try and tempt me, wouldn’t you?”

“Making conversation.” Crawly shrugged innocently. “I notice things, that’s all. You obviously like talking about… food, and… maths, I suppose.”

“It’s more the entire concept of writing that fascinates me,” Aziraphale corrected with a small wave of his fingers. “Collective memories, preserved over centuries, even after the humans they belonged to are no longer on earth. Stories. Ideas.” But he sounded subdued, restrained, especially compared to how he’d been in the library. 

“Are you alright?” Crawly found himself asking. 

“What?” Aziraphale’s eyes widened as he tore his eyes away from the sky again. 

“Seems like something’s got you down all of a sudden.” 

“Oh, no, I’m… I’m fine, thank you,” Aziraphale flashed him an awkward, utterly unconvincing smile. 

“Right….” Crawly didn’t smile back, and they ended up staring at each other, each waiting for the other to speak, for an uncomfortably long minute.

Crawly finally gave up and lifted a hand to give the angel a goodbye pat on the shoulder. “Well, I guess I’m ready to call it a n—”

“_Ah!_” Aziraphale’s startled yelp nearly sent Crawly tumbling—as it was, he slid off the wall and staggered a step or two, staring at the angel’s hand, clapped over where Crawly had touched him. 

“Sorry!” Crawly blurted. “Didn’t—wasn’t thinking—forgot.” The touch had stung his hand too, but he’d barely noticed it, the greater shock coming from Aziraphale’s reaction. “Did it hurt?” 

“It… ah, it’s… nothing.” Aziraphale seemed to buck up and let go of his shoulder, trying to look at it as if expecting to see a burn. “Don’t worry about it.” A strange look came over his face: withdrawing.

“Right,” Crawly muttered faintly, a guilty tingle still lingering in his fingertips. “I won’t.” 

It took nearly twenty more seconds for him to convince himself to shuffle away toward the gate. 

“Where are you going?” Aziraphale asked.

“Can’t sleep in this house on Sabbath.”

“I didn’t realize you needed sleep.”

“Eh.” Crawly shrugged and didn’t clarify that need and want were different things. “Got a place across town I can crash. See you in the morning.”

“Will I?” 

Crawly looked back, one hand on the gate, wondering if that was a hint that Aziraphale would rather not see him in the morning. “Yeah?” 

“Oh. Alright, then.” The angel’s voice relaxed. “Goodnight, Crawly.” 

For a second Crawly almost swallowed all the restlessness that was driving him out into the streets, almost said _never mind I’d rather sit out on the wall and stargaze for a few more hours_, but there was too much tangled up in his head, and he didn’t have the wherewithal to sort it out, and who knew what sort of things he might say or do if he wasn’t careful. His judgment hadn’t been so sound these days, even when he wasn’t drunk.

“Night,” he said instead, and let himself out the gate, the packed earth soft and dusty, growing cool beneath his bare feet. The hymns and prayers faded out behind him as he walked further into the darkness, until all he had for company or guidance were the stars he’d helped to build.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I had fun looking up stuff about constellations. The temple isn't any particular temple, but I liked the idea of Crowley being responsible for a pole star that got shifted out of relevance. Also, something about Draco having so many binary and double stars in it really delighted me.   
2\. I am not Jewish and I hope that my depiction of Shabbat is respectful, I tried to read up on it a bit before writing. In the process I ran across a wonderful story about how a good angel and an evil angel will follow you home from the synagogue on the sabbath, and if everything is prepared well, the good angel essentially says "May it be so next sabbath" and the evil angel is forced to say "Amen". But if the preparations are not made and the atmosphere is gloomy, the evil angel will say "May it be so next sabbath" and the good angel says "Amen." I decided a play on that with Crowley and Aziraphale would be nice.   
3\. Please listen to the beautiful song this chapter references: [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-wAAtCvPnQ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-wAAtCvPnQ)


	5. Chapter 5

Crawly enjoyed sleeping. Perhaps it was the serpent in him, drawn to warm, dark places, but in any case it was a quirk that had served him well since his fall—after all, everyone could stand to take solace in peaceful (temporary) oblivion once every long while. It was all the more enjoyable because he didn’t require it.

It also helped that Khnumet had more than one very nice bed, as beds went in this particular time in history, with an actual wool-stuffed mattress covered by linen sheets. The wooden headrest even had an optional wrapping to cushion it for nights when the heat wasn’t so bad, and air flow around the head not so vital. 

So it was that Crawly was in an especially deep and restful sleep when Aziraphale burst into his room, hissing his name and causing him to nearly leap from the bed in surprise. 

“_Crawly! Are you in here?_” 

It was still dark, or mostly, but Crawly could see better in the dark than humans. Even if that weren’t so, only one person in this household called him by that name, and besides, he could smell the angel’s righteousness—especially strong in the early morning dimness, like someone had secretly planted jasmine outside Crowley’s window.

“Aziraphale, _what _the—the _blessed heaven_ are you doing in—”

“Shh! Shh-sh, not another word!” Aziraphale’s voice was a near-frantic whisper, and not in the typical cease-thy-blasphemies sort of way. 

That shut Crawly up. And that was when he realized that the light through his window was not that of dawn approaching, but of something else entirely. 

His half-asleep mind was still sorting out the facts. Aziraphale never came into this room, not even during daylight hours. If they needed to speak away from mortal ears, they took walks, or found a way to lose themselves in a busy public place, or a quiet corner of the courtyard. Aziraphale had been offered a guest bed but never took it, choosing instead to spend long nights in Khnumet’s library. So something very different was happening right now. 

That fact was driven even more firmly home when Crawly tried to leave the bed, and found himself propelled back onto it with such an unearthly force that, for a hair-raising moment, he couldn’t tell if Aziraphale had merely shoved him physically or had tried some actual, honest-to-God smiting.

_“Stay there!” _

And then Aziraphale was gone, out of the room with a soft patter of footsteps, and Crawly sat still, too stunned to do anything but obey.

At least for the first two minutes. Two minutes is a long time to a mind catapulted from total rest to total alertness, and Crawly watched the strange light outside of his window shift, sniffed and tasted the air and felt a surge of instinct to make himself invisible. Something angelic was going on again, and every demonic bit of him could feel it, but he didn’t move, torn between the desire to rise and investigate, and the desire to curl into a quiet scaly coil beneath the bed where no one would find him. 

At last, as it almost always did, curiosity won out. But just as Crawly set his feet on the floor, the light faded, and the thick scent of righteousness diluted to a more pleasant concentration. Internally uncoiling, Crawly went straight to the library.

There was a moment, before Aziraphale realized he wasn’t alone, when Crawly thought he saw a haunted look on the angel’s face, like he was staring through the lamp-lit papyrus on the table instead of actually reading it. But the next moment, Aziraphale blinked and looked up like Crawly’s presence was the buzz of an unwelcome fly.

“What?” his tone suggested Crawly had accused him of something. 

“What?” Crawly repeated, only half intending to mock. Not even half. 

“I thought you were sleeping.”

Crawly snorted, but was careful to keep his voice low. “I was, until someone decided to come whip me around like a boomerang. What was all that about?”

“Never you mind,” Aziraphale murmured, pretending to turn his attention back to the scroll. The light from the oil lamps threw unnaturally deep shadows into the soft indentations of his face, the pale brightness of skin and hair contrasting with them in a glow both celestial and spooky. To Crawly, the two descriptors hadn’t been mutually exclusive for millennia, but it still disturbed him to see them combined in the face of someone who was normally so unthreatening. 

“Ever, I mind,” Crawly playfully threw back. “Being woken up without explanation, that is. Why so worried about where I was?”

Aziraphale laced his hands and put them under the table, out of view as he sat back a little, strangely somber. “I needed a chance…to give my own report to Gabriel.”

Crawly swallowed, trying to cling to the uncaring air he’d scraped up a moment before. “Oh,” he said lightly. “So that’s what the smiting was about. I wondered.”

“Smiting?” Ah, that had done the trick; the angel was looking at him now, instead of boring a hole through the table. “I never tried to smite you! I’m not_ that_ sort of angel.”

“Well, maybe not an angelic smiting, more of a human one, but you could still tell Gabriel you smote me and he’d probably pat you on the back and buzz off—was that your plan?” 

“I didn’t lie!” Aziraphale protested. 

“So you gave him directions to my bedroom? Or did he leave it to you to come finish the job once he’d left?”

“I am under no obligation to explain myself to you,” Aziraphale said haltingly, putting visible effort into keeping his voice firm. “All you need to know is that Jesus and his family will be leaving very soon, and you are by no means to follow them.”

“Good. Great!” Crawly gave a huge shrug, leaving his bare arms spread wide even once it was done. “I already told you I wouldn’t. Though I should remind you, funny thing about being a demon—I’m not_ supposed_ to follow heaven’s orders anymore!”

“Will you keep your voice down?” Aziraphale muttered quietly through tight lips, and Crawly realized he’d been speaking a bit too expressively.

“You didn’t tell them,” Crawly guessed, grinning. “Gabriel still doesn’t know I’m here.”

“As I said, I don’t have to explain anything to you.” Aziraphale was getting upset, but quietly so, and that felt more worrisome to Crawly than seeing him sputter and fret and deny. “I have my reasons, and they have nothing to do with you.”

And the shelter of his wing in Eden had been purely a show of holy benevolence? 

Crawly shrugged again, letting his hands drop to his sides, fingertips brushing the smoothness of the long black nightgown he slept in. “Alright. They can’t know I’ve been here, so… saving your own skin. I get it. Tough crowd, heaven.” 

“I’m not afraid, Crawly.” The edge in Aziraphale’s voice didn’t seem to agree, at least to Crawly’s ear. “I simply have a conscience, and that conscience demands I do what I think to be right.”

“You think covering for me is the right thing to do?” Crawly frowned skeptically.

“I never said that.”

“Then what are you talking about?” 

“Even if it were possible for me to explain, you wouldn’t understand it. You’re a demon.” Aziraphale pushed himself up from the table suddenly. “I’m not discussing this any further. Why don’t you go back to bed?”

“Yes, _dear_,” Crawly laughed. “What are you, my mother?”

“No, but you clearly wish I hadn’t woken you.”

“What I wish, angel, is that you would give me a proper explanation for all this.”

“Then I’m going to have to apologize,” Aziraphale said, beginning to roll up the scroll, then reconsidering and replacing the paperweights. “I’m sorry I can’t tell you any more; if you want to talk I suggest we change the subject. Oh!” His tense expression lightened a bit, two of his fingertips tapping the table’s edge. “Right—here’s a spot of good news. Herod is dead.”

“Dead?” Crawly cocked his head, disoriented at the possibilities behind that single word. “Well. Good job, Gabriel.”

“I rather thought it was your side that did it. Harvesting a wicked soul, and so on… but I suppose we can’t be sure. At any rate, there’s no need to worry about Jesus and his family when they leave. Now you can stay here and focus on your… other temptations.” Aziraphale blinked through a weak smile, as if he was politely putting up with a nasty smell. 

Could his wickedness be as easy to pick out on the wind as Aziraphale’s righteousness? He knew what hell smelled like: the rot, the rust, the stale crowded air, the sharp undertone of something almost chemical. No humans ever mentioned that it might cling to him, but Aziraphale wasn’t human.

As Aziraphale came out from behind the table and toward him, Crawly backed away step for step through the library’s doorway, until Aziraphale stopped and his eyebrows drew together in a question.

“Great,” Crawly said again, with an empty smile of his own. “Well. Guess that’s it, then. And where are you off to next?”

“I’ll be accompanying the family to Nazareth as soon as they’re ready to leave. Hopefully between breakfast and lunch today.” 

Crawly swallowed the arguments that rose in his throat. Yes, the journey would be harsh, but they didn’t _need_ him. No one actually needed him. And whatever affection the little godspawn had for him would soon be erased by time and distance—and, no doubt, by the persistence of Aziraphale’s holy company. 

“Right,” Crawly mumbled, and cleared his throat. “I’m going to go have a lie-down.”

“Crawly….”

He almost pretended not to hear it. But, curse his hope, he stopped and turned halfway. Aziraphale’s guarded look had lifted, just a smidge, like cracks of light through the reed-mat shades in Khnumet’s windows. 

“What,” Crawly mumbled, more of a grunt than a word. 

“It’s… I found a scroll of folk tales, and I wondered if you might want to look at it with me. There might not be time in the morning. Oh, and….” Aziraphale reached into a small beaded bag attached to his sash. “I thought I would get some fresh ones before I offered you any, but then I didn’t get around to it. I suppose this is my last chance.” 

He pulled out a small sphere wrapped in thin waxy cloth, the corners twisted together and tied with twine. Crawly already knew what it must be: one of those tiger-nut sweets Aziraphale kept going on about. What did he mean, last chance? Surely he didn’t expect they’d be able to avoid each other completely for the rest of time.

Crawly stared at the sweet in much the same way Eve had stared at the apple roughly four thousand years prior, unsure what might happen if he reached out his hand. He chewed his lip for a moment, thinking.

“Those folk tales… they wouldn’t happen to be about snakes and apples, would they?” 

“I can’t say.” Aziraphale peered at him in confusion, palm still outstretched. “I’ve only skimmed a few of them.” 

“Then why d’you think I would enjoy them?” Crawly asked, a lazy mutter and a slouch to disguise the way he stood on pins and needles. What did the angel mean by this cruel game of tug-o-war?

“Oh… you_ wanted_ stories about demons and apples? I can check—”

“No! No,” Crawly groaned, rolling his eyes so hard his head rolled back too, nearly laughing in exasperation. “I don’t need… just… give me that.” He snatched the sweet from the angel’s hand and unwrapped it with fingers gone hot at the tips, needing something other than that infuriatingly earnest face to look at.

The little ball was smooth, dusted in a fine meal of some sort, but with sticky spots bleeding through. He could smell the sweetness of it before he even put it in his mouth, but it still shocked him, the tacky outer layer of honey giving way to the chewy, juicy sugar of the mashed dates and ground tigernuts. His tongue hurt, and for a moment the paranoid thought leapt up his spine that the angel had poisoned him—could holiness be infused into food? He nearly spat the whole thing out before Aziraphale’s voice broke softly into his anxious thoughts. 

“Do you like it?” 

Crawly nearly swallowed, then stopped himself, but his mouth was too full to speak politely. There was a long moment of staring at the angel’s expectant face, Crawly’s own face frozen mid-chew as he waited for some clearer message of danger in his body’s confused signals. But nothing got worse immediately, and in a leap of—faith? trust? sheer lunacy?—Crawly began chewing again, and pointed to his mouth to indicate why he couldn’t reply. 

The quickly-stifled, sheepish laugh that broke from Aziraphale—the angel’s hand briefly touching his own smiling lips as if in apology—made Crawly’s fears seem ridiculous. But Crawly had been overconfident in his worth to heaven before.

He swallowed the sweet in one huge gulp once his mouth had watered enough to soften it. 

“It’s alright,” he said grudgingly, folding the waxed cloth into a tiny square before catching himself and throwing it hastily back toward Aziraphale. “Bit too sticky. So what about this scroll?”

“Oh! Yes, the scroll.” Aziraphale fumbled after the little wrapper and had to bend over to retrieve it from the ground. But he looked pleased when he straightened, and it was clear from the way he turned to go that he expected Crawly to follow him.

And Crawly did, tongue working restlessly at the sticky residue on his teeth, and stomach working restlessly at everything he’d just swallowed, including the sweet.

“It starts with creation myths, but that’s not all!” Aziraphale settled back on the stool as if strapping in for a jaunty carriage ride, and Crawly looked around before pulling another one up beside him and sweeping his skirt out of the way to sit, so he wouldn’t have to bend over the table as he’d done Aziraphale’s first night here. “Did you know, one Egyptian legend has it that the sun hatched from an egg, bobbing along in the ocean?” 

Crawly pursed his lips and shook his head, scanning ahead on the lines as Aziraphale began to gleefully recount the creation myth, how Ra created his wife, children, grandchildren… the tale of jealous brother killing more favored brother….

“Some of that seems too familiar, don’t you think?” Crawly muttered, to let Aziraphale know he was listening, even as his mind ground out juddering questions like a wagon wheel in a rut. What did Aziraphale want—and more important, what did he think Crawly wanted?

“Hmm? Oh, I suppose it is a bit like Cain and Abel… anyway, then Ra set Osiris to become the god of the dead, because Anubis had restored his body but not his life, and though Isis was grateful, nothing could bring her husband back to her….”

The angel’s voice was so easy to listen to, even when Crawly didn’t want to. He didn’t want to indulge whatever it was that had drawn them here, this deliberate distraction against whatever harsh reality Aziraphale was hiding from him. The longer he sat, the more he wanted to squirm, aware of the passage of time as the darkness outside the window-mats diluted into dawn. 

Chin resting on one hand, he studied the angel’s face, careful to keep only an expression of mild interest on his own for those frequent moments when Aziraphale glanced over to make sure he was still paying attention. Aziraphale’s eyelids were lowered halfway as he read, the lamp glow highlighting the normally unnoticeable tips of his pale eyelashes. As the angel’s voice went up and down expressively, his facial expressions mirrored it in brief bursts, always returning to a soft, default smile, a natural up-turn at the edges of his mouth and eyes. He was enjoying this. 

He was enjoying this and Crawly couldn’t end it, but he had to end it… it was going to end whether Crawly wanted it to or not. Aziraphale was harmless, and dangerous, and he was of heaven, and heaven wanted nothing to do with Crawly, and yet here heaven was, and it was his own fault. Was he so pitiful a beggar that he sought out his own punishments?

A moth fluttered toward one of the oil lamps, and Crawly watched it, waiting for Aziraphale to notice and stop it from meeting an untimely end. He couldn’t very well wave it away in the angel’s presence without giving the wrong impression.

“...and you see this illustration here, of the pharaoh’s crook and flail. I suppose it does sort of look like a serpent, but it doesn’t say anything about that exactly here. They made it out of wood, you see, extra precious in these parts….”

The moth flew very nearly into the flame, then veered away, and for a moment Crawly thought it might actually be an exception to its species’ foolish nature. But just as he was relaxing, it fluttered back toward the flame, trying to land on it, only to fall to the table, legs twitching and shaking, the tiniest curl of smoke rising from its body. Aziraphale didn’t even notice, still reading. The room felt unusually suffocating for someone who didn’t even need to breathe.

“They say that once a year Isis returns to the riverbank to weep for Osiris, and it causes the banks to flood, bringing life to Egypt. Isn’t that beautiful? You see, something good came from all that suffering. Humans understand that God’s ways are mighty and mysterious.”

“Are you trying to teach me a lesson?” Crawly straightened, stiffened, willing the moth to hurry and die so he didn’t have to watch the painful end of its pointless life.

The smiling corners of Aziraphale’s eyes and mouth smoothed out, blunted. “Would that be any reason for you to be angry?”

“You can’t save a demon,” said Crawly. “So the only thing that’s going to happen is I’m going to get annoyed and you’re going to feel good about yourself.”

“It was just a story, Crawly.” Aziraphale sounded almost hurt. “There’s no need for us to part on an unpleasant note. As you say, we are what we are… best to just accept our differences.”

“So that’s it, then? Hello, how are you, now let’s keep out of each other’s way for as long as possible?” 

It was a certainty heavy as sandbags, and all Crawly would have normally said began to swell up slowly behind that dam instead. Aziraphale was writing him off. Of course. What little curiosity and daring he’d sensed in the angel from the time they’d met in the garden seemed to be losing the fight, and no matter how pleasant it had been to play house for a few weeks, Crawly couldn’t blame the angel for choosing heaven over the chance to read a demon bedtime stories. 

Aziraphale nodded once, quick and matter-of-fact. “I’m doing this as much for your benefit as for mine, and for the greater good as well. Surely you understand.”

“You said it yourself. I’m a demon, so I can’t understand it.” Crawly let his voice drip with sarcasm. “Whatever it is you think you’re doing for the greater good.” 

“And you said you didn’t want anyone on your side finding out you’ve been in contact with God’s child without telling them.” Aziraphale was whispering again. “Things certainly can’t go on as they have been. Not without a great deal of trouble for everyone involved.”

Crawly frowned deeply. “So you think this really was all a coincidence? Like a, a side note, a distraction…barely a part of the story at all? If God knew Herod was just going to die anyway and it didn’t matter if Jesus came to Egypt to escape, why didn’t They just have him die _before_ he killed all those other kids?” 

“I don’t have all the answers, Crawly,” Aziraphale sighed, sounding for once as if he really wished he did. “But I know my duty. And yours. So I suggest we make the best of things we can.”

Aziraphale was looking at him fully, now, that soft sadness—and something like compassion—seeping out of him as persistently as the refreshing scent of new life. 

“Oh,” Crawly half-groaned and slumped across the open papyrus with his arms and head, sweeping the nearly-dead moth off the table in a quick, vicious flick of one hand as he did so. “Please. Don’t.” 

“Pardon me?” 

“Don’t look at me like that. All…_ benevolent _and… like you actually fell for my innocent act.”

“Act?” Aziraphale’s voice was disappointed, of all things. “But I’ve been watching you.” 

“Only for the last couple of weeks. I’m patient.”

“I assure you, I never completely put the possibility of deception from my mind,” said Aziraphale. “But even if your motives are nefarious, I’d rather this situation not come to blows. It will all be a moot point when the child leaves, anyway.” 

Crawly considered keeping his head down, marveling at how easily the two of them formed this recurring truce, century after century. He had his back to the angel now, and if it had been any other heavenly being he would have feared a blow, a heavenly blade between the shoulders where his river of red hair ran, or a shock of divine fire when his guard was down. But Aziraphale _wasn’t _that type of angel.

Whether it was naiveté, subtlety, or some kind of imaginary moral high ground, Aziraphale seemed content to let him continue walking the earth causing mild chaos.

“Why not?” Crawly finally asked, muffled into his arms.

“Sorry? Didn’t quite catch that.”

“I said,” Crawly pushed himself back into a regular sit, “Why not?”

“What?”

“Why not come to blows?”

“I….” Aziraphale leaned away from him a bit, mouth pinched and eyebrows askew as if Crawly had just asked him to drown a kitten. “I’m not particularly fond of violence.”

“Even for a good cause?” Crawly gave him a pointed frown. “Liberating slaves, for example?”

“Even that. I could, if ordered to. But I’d rather use…other methods.” The angels hands were laced together in his lap again, his eyes shifting restlessly between the table and Crawly’s face.

A light rap from the doorway made their heads snap toward it; Khnumet stood there, leaning in with a curious look on her face.

“Mary said something about leaving today. They’re already packing. But why are you two up so early?”

“Must be something in the wind,” Crawly sighed, and pushed away from the table.

“Will you be leaving as well?” asked Khnumet, casting a perceptive glance between the two of them.

“He will.” Crawly nodded down at Aziraphale. “I won’t.”

“I should let you finish your conversation.”

“Already finished.” Crawly moved past Khnumet and toward Mary’s room, wanting to check on their progress. Already packing? Well, it made good sense to set out before the sun rose, make best use of the cooler hours so they weren’t stranded between towns in the hottest part of the day.

Behind him, he heard Khnumet and Aziraphale murmuring to each other, and wondered what kind of misguided relationship advice she was giving the angel. Normally, it would have made him laugh to imagine it. But right now, the charade he and Aziraphale had been involved in felt tiresome, irritating. He headed for the room where Jesus and his family slept, and heard the soft sounds of movement within before he turned the corner to see sleepy-eyed Mary and Joseph carefully organizing their packs. They seemed close to finishing.

“Oh… Tanis.” Joseph noticed her first. He spoke in the hush of a parent desperate for a few more hours of peace. “Did we wake you?”

Crawly shook his head and folded his arms tightly, keeping his voice similarly soft. “Aziraphale said you were leaving after breakfast?”

“We are,” whispered Mary—Jesus was still sprawled on his back on the bed. “But we’re going to try and make it an early breakfast. I was going to invite you to come with us, but your husband said you have other duties here, and he’ll be coming with us instead?”

“That seems to be the plan,” Crawly muttered dully. He stepped into the room, intending to get one last close look at the baby, but was interrupted when Mary stood and put her arms around him.

Regular human touch, warm from recent sleep. Crawly had only been embraced like this a few times since his fall, and even fewer by someone he felt any fondness for. But Mary, still so young, her head barely past his chin, hadn’t asked to be thrown into the middle of all this. She was muddling her way through, reaching for whatever and whoever might help her.

Crawly unfolded his tightly clasped arms and put them around her instead.

“Are you sure you have to stay?” she asked.

For a long moment, he thought about saying no, thought about saying “to hell with that plan”, but as much as he hated it, he had to admit Aziraphale’s caution was the wiser approach.

“It’s for the best,” he sighed into her hair, loosening his grip on her. She took a while longer to let go.

“I’ll miss you.” Oh, blessed heavens, were those actual tears in her eyes? Crawly tried hard not to look, but even so the sad laugh and hasty rubbing at her face confirmed it. “You’ve been so kind. Jesus will miss you too.”

“Not really,” Crawly mumbled halfheartedly.

“He will!”

Not what he’d meant, but true enough. “No he won’t. Won’t even remember me.”

“He will if you visit,” Mary weakly sang, wearing a tempting grin of her own.

“Well….” Crawly edged awkwardly away from her, just a bit at a time. “Well, who knows?”

“If I brush your hair, would you help me with breakfast?” Mary looked amused as she reached up to smooth his wild curls, which he hadn’t thought to tidy up since he’d been so rudely rousted from sleep.

Crawly sat down carefully on the edge of the bed with a reluctant _well, go on then_ sort of look at Mary.

For the next five or ten minutes, they sat in near silence while Joseph went to go fasten their bags to the donkey’s saddle. Jesus slept peacefully, and Crawly let Mary’s fingers run through the tangles, the only miraculous thing about the process the fact that his curls would come out looking perfect in the end.

“I have a cousin who did this for me while I was pregnant,” Mary murmured half to herself. “I’m excited to see her again… I_ am _relieved to go home, but… I feel safe here too, with you and Khnumet.”

“You’ll be safer back home,” Crawly said, and wondered why it felt like a lie. “Don’t you think? Now that Herod’s gone.”

“I hope so.”

“Aziraphale won’t let anything happen to you.”

They made breakfast in near silence at first, until some of the early-rising servants joined them, asking questions about the route they were taking, and giving advice about bandits and the best places to stop for the night. Crawly felt more than saw Aziraphale pass the windows on the way to the bathing room—the angel had quickly gotten fond of Egyptian-style baths, and had fallen into a routine of taking one nearly every morning while breakfast was being prepared.

Two weeks was such a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things… still long enough for even an angel to develop a habit. No Egyptian-style baths on the road to Nazareth, probably. Crawly wondered if the angel would miss them.

The sound of Jesus waking was barely audible above the sizzling and boiling and chopping going on out in the courtyard by the fire pits and ovens, but over the last few months Crawly’s ears had developed as much sensitivity for the baby’s voice as Mary’s had. They both looked toward the house at the same time, but Crawly rushed to head Mary off.

“I’ll get him,” he said. Mary flashed an understanding smile and let him go.

He passed Khnumet in the main room, but she didn’t stop him, knowing why he’d come in. Jesus was sitting near the edge of the bed, whining down at the floor he didn’t quite dare to nose-dive onto again.

“That’s the only problem with these beds,” Crawly agreed as he held out his hands and Jesus lifted his in turn, asking to be picked up. “Not so easy to get off of when you’re tiny.”

For a moment, Crawly feared Jesus would immediately want down, as lately he’d been so determined to walk. But it was still early, after all, and Jesus rubbed his eyes, curling against Crawly’s chest with his head tucked in under the demon’s jaw, radiating holiness through Crawly in slow, painful waves.

“Yeah… yep,” was all Crawly could bring himself to say, swallowing against the warm weight resting on his throat.

With a flush of relief at this small mercy, this one last indulgence, Crawly turned reluctantly to take Jesus out to see his mother. He was probably ready for his own breakfast, after all, unless he was about to fall back asleep. Crawly decided to walk slowly, bear this softly burning weight just a little longer in his arms.

Khnumet was waiting for him in the main room. “I talked to your husband. I don’t understand why he doesn’t want you to go with him, but if you do, I think it might be worth it to be more direct with him.”

“Oh… it’s….” Crawly grimaced over Jesus’ head. “It’s too complicated. We both have our own things to do, anyway.”

“You don’t fool me, Tanis,” Khnumet said. “I can see you wish things were different.”

“Human condition,” Crawly shrugged dismissively, and headed back out into the courtyard to reluctantly return the baby to where he belonged.

…

They didn’t speak much during breakfast, Aziraphale nor Crawly, leaving the chatting to Khnumet, Joseph, and Mary. Jesus, once he was done nursing, went round and round the table, peering curiously at each adult’s food, occasionally reaching for it, and Crawly tore off tiny pieces of bread for him to swallow, wondering each time if it would be the last. He watched the angel feed him too, a mixture of satisfaction and disappointment rising in him at how comfortable Jesus had become with the angel by now, their pure smiles mirroring a goodness Crawly could never replicate.

On the thirteenth go-around, Mary finally stood up. “We could help with the dishes, before we go,” she offered.

Khnumet waved her hand. “You have a long journey ahead of you, and the sun is already coming up. The servants will take care of it.”

“I really cannot thank you enough for all you’ve done for us,” Joseph said sincerely.

“You can! And you have, with the table you made me.”

Everyone was standing up to say their last goodbyes, but Crawly stayed seated on his cushion, watching Jesus sit back with a look of realization that something was afoot.

“You’re welcome to stay if you ever pass this way again. Please do.”

“I hope we will soon.”

Jesus looked over at him as Mary approached, almost as if he knew what was about to happen. And Crawly felt it, in that moment, the pathetic absurdity of it all. The angel was right… believing anything good could come of a demon associating with God’s child was nothing short of a delusion.

He didn’t know what was best. He didn’t understand any of it, just feeling his way through the dark, chasing moments of relief, trying to make meaning of an existence that ultimately meant nothing. He wondered if the servants had swept away the moth on the library floor yet. It must be dead by now.

“Say bye-bye to your auntie, Jesus,” Mary was saying with a sad smile, demonstrating a wave of her hand, and Jesus flapped his fingers at Crawly once, never breaking eye contact. “We’ll miss you.”

And then he was up in Mary’s arms, blinking at Crawly over his mother’s shoulder.

Crawly stared back blank-faced, until Jesus’ little forehead wrinkled and his big dark eyes darted away. Good, Crawly thought. Easier.

“Follow us out, Tanis?” Aziraphale’s soft voice couldn’t be ignored. Reluctantly, Crawly looked up at the angel’s offered hand, then at Khnumet, watching them keenly. He sighed and got to his feet without help, walking ahead of the angel so he didn’t have to look at him.

Out in the courtyard, Mary helped Jesus pet the donkey’s neck.

“Well, this is where I leave you,” Aziraphale said, looking between Khnumet and Crawly with a polite smile. “You have been a most gracious host, Khnumet. Your kindness will not be forgotten.”

“What are you going to do with yourself now that we’re gone, Tanis?” Joseph asked with a friendly laugh.

Crawly forced a thin smile, well aware that Aziraphale was watching him but determined not to make eye contact. “Nneh, you know… take this opportunity to focus on my work.”

Tempting, corrupting, causing mayhem. It was the purpose God had assigned him by casting him out. And by God, if that was what They and everyone else in the universe wanted, he may as well stop fooling himself and do it. A stale emptiness filled him like a slowly inflating balloon.

Jesus was wiggling in Mary’s arms, wanting to get down and walk. But the road was no place for a baby’s bare feet, and Joseph was already opening the gate.

“Safe travels,” Khnumet wished them all with a slow wave of her arm.

“God bless you and your house,” Mary called back.

“Goodbye, Crawly,” said Aziraphale, with a smile that could have been fond, approving, or relieved.

“Yeh,” Crawly mumbled, running a restless hand through his hair before turning on his heel and heading inside, chased by Jesus cries of frustration at not being allowed to walk.

The moth was still on the library floor, nestled into the edge where floor met wall. Its furry little body, its tiny curled legs, didn’t stir at all when Crawly brushed the edge of one toe against it gently. He stared at it for a moment before stooping down to carefully scoop it into his hands, just a husk, really.

“Tanis… you didn’t even say goodbye to your husband.” Khnumet stood in the doorway, looking concerned. Her eyes moved to his cupped hands. “What are you doing?”

“Just going to put this thing outside,” he muttered, manifesting sandals once he’d passed out of Khnumet’s view.

He went out and down to the reeds, looking for a spider’s web. At least if he gave it to a spider, it would serve a purpose. But he couldn’t find a single web.

Walking faster, the little carcass rolled, almost weightless, in his palm. Was this how God felt about humans? Just foolish insects, causing their own destruction in their thirst for some greater light?

Crawly stopped, spotting a large ant near his feet, carrying a crumb of something in its mouth. What was he doing, feeding insects to insects? A demon wouldn’t care. A demon would find something diabolical to do with this lifeless thing in his hand.

The ant crawled away, and Crawly saw himself, insignificant and caught up in the daily rounds of nothingness, not knowing why he did what he did.

Out on the Nile, a nobleman lay in splendor on a boat, sleepily parading his riches for the citizens of Egypt to see. Crawly swung his hand behind him and around, lending miraculous force to the weightless moth’s body, causing it to sail from his palm in a graceful arc, straight into the man’s wine.

It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Just a little something to get him in the mood. As Crawly turned around to go back to the house, he began to think of all the ways a woman like Khnumet could fall. There were too many, once he really thought to look. Pride, greed, lust, cultish fervor, good intentions gone wrong. There were always too many, for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Tiger nut sweets were a real thing! But tiger nuts aren't actually nuts, they're small nutritious tubers. Modern versions of the recipe often use walnuts instead.  
2\. Changed the candles to oil lamps after being informed that's probably more likely.


	6. Chapter 6

It was going to be a hot evening, and smelly. Not that any of the smell came from Crawly, but rather from the beast that wobbled underneath him. Most animals were uneasy around Crawly to begin with, and thus Crawly was uneasy around them in return. Camels, however, seemed to think spite was the best cure for an uneasy rider, and he could have sworn the blasted thing had been trying to surreptitiously throw him off for the entire ride.

At least it wasn’t windy. Wind might have been refreshing for the humans present, but if it kicked up on these dunes it would have gotten sand in everyone’s eyes, and Crawly didn’t think the dark scarf he had round his head would have done much to prevent that without a miracle. Temperatures, he could easily ignore. Sand, not so much.

“Alright back there, Tanis?” Khnumet called back.

“I’m never riding a camel again if I can help it.” Crawly’s mount suddenly picked up the pace, swinging him from side to side like a badly tethered balloon. “EY! Whoa-oh!” He clung to the knob at the front of the saddle and his legs came uncrossed, causing him to feel even more unbalanced.

“Relax!” Khnumet laughed. “It’s just excited because we’re getting close to our next stop.”

“Oh, thank Hell. Rgh. Calm. Relaxed.” Crawly muttered to himself and tried to force it to be true. Once he’d regained his seat and felt reasonably certain he wasn’t about to be thrown, he shaded his eyes against the evening sun and saw that indeed they were coming back toward the Nile Delta, and soon their direct route northwest from Memphis would pay off. He could see _green_ again, a wide blur of it all along the northern horizon they chased.

One of their fellow travelers chuckled. “By the time we get to Alexandria, we’ll be so rough-looking from crossing the desert that even your documents won’t do us any good, Khnumet.”

“Most of us clean up pretty nicely, Mohar.” There was a playful smugness to Khnumet’s voice. “Don’t worry; I’m sure you’ll pass the test by association if you stick with the rest of us. Before long we’ll all be Roman citizens, and your families’ fortunes will be assured. We’ll be landowners.”

That seemed to cheer everyone up, and they started chatting about how the underclass would serve them and how much profit the merchants in the group would make selling grain to the Romans. Well, _almost_ everyone was cheered up by this. The servants at the back of the line probably didn’t catch any of it.

As they approached the farmlands on the edge of the Delta, Crawly was already in a foul mood because of the camel, and the smell, and the flies that were buzzing around said camel but hadn’t yet dared to bite him. Then he saw the Roman soldiers, spread out along the perimeter of the fields, a group of them clustered near a large wagon full of grain. Among the soldiers were some who looked to have joined up recently from Egypt’s population, and one of them, Crawly saw as they got closer, was taking altogether too much pleasure in bringing down the literal whip on his neighbors’ backs.

“Do you know,” Khnumet said in a privately scandalized voice, “that the Prefect considers my social position to be little better than those farmers’? Me, a scribe from countless generations of scribes to the Pharaoh, equal to those poor souls?”

“The whole country’s gone upside-down,” another fellow traveler grumbled. “Giving servants the power to whip their own masters once they join the army—I heard that happened to an acquaintance of mine from Memphis.” (Crawly had to hold in a snort. And forging documents to increase their own status was somehow better?) “But that’s what _they_ want, you know. Total cultural assimilation, and the military numbers to back it up. Let just about anyone join—ridiculous. The only way to hold onto our traditions is to work the system, keep a firm grip on our power.”

“Absolutely,” said Khnumet. “It’s for the good of all Egypt.”

The whip-cracks and muffled shrieks of the farm workers followed them to the nearest stream, and Crawly nearly pitched forward off his camel when it dropped its front legs without warning.

“Oh, I am getting _off_ your great bloody humps, don’t you worry!” Crawly snarled as he scrambled to dismount as quickly as he could. “They really should have gone back to the drawing board with you lot, I don’t know who thought riding an animal with two molehills stuck on its back was _ever_ a good idea.”

The camel’s head snaked around, spat at him and said _CRAWLY, WE NEED TO TALK_ in a rather smarmy voice.

If Crawly had been human, he would have thought he was hallucinating from dehydration or heatstroke. For a moment, he wished he were, because the alternative meant the bastard camel he’d just been riding was possessed by a demon that now intended to have a chat in the middle of a caravan of high-class Egyptians.

“How are your legs, Tanis?” Khnumet was right behind him, suddenly, and Crawly gave the camel a burning shut-up sort of stare before turning toward her with a nervous smile.

“Ah—yuh, tailbone’s definitely sore,” he winced. “Legs, not so bad. I think I can make it to Alexandria without splitting up the middle.”

“Good,” Khnumet laughed, “because I need you there for moral support. I have full confidence in the documents… no need to worry about that. But it’s still nerve-wracking, isn’t it? All of these nobles, counting on me….”

“If anything’s going to go wrong, it’ll be their fault, not yours. But you do outrank them,” Crawly said, fully aware from the sticky prickling going up his back that the demon-camel was still watching him and no doubt growing impatient. “Most of them. What’s their word really worth if it comes down to it? You play a good game of Senet, don’t you?”

He’d done his work too well. Where a year ago, Khnumet’s eyes might have held a tiny glimmer of reluctance, now she grinned. “They know their fortunes rise and fall with mine, and if I fall, they will fall much further. You’re right, Tanis.” As she clapped a hand on his shoulder, a spark of her old smile came back, a real, grateful smile.

Eugh. Crawly watched her walk away until he was sure he was relatively alone, and then turned around to see the camel drinking noisily from the stream. Probably too optimistic of him to hope the demon had decided their talk could wait and called off the possession. As for how _long_ the camel had been possessed… well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

With a baleful look, Crawly edged closer to the beast’s head. “Right. If you spit at me again, we are not having a conversation, because_ I’ll_ know you’re just a normal camel.”

_WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING OUT HERE CRAWLY_, the camel muttered once it had stopped drinking, its weird camel-lips dripping._IT’S BEEN NEARLY SIX YEARS. PERHAPS YOUR GENIUS IS WASTED OUT HERE?_

“Six years, yeah, uh, sorry, lord,” Crawly hissed nervously into the camel’s ear, stomach plummeting as he recognized the voice of Satan himself. “Khnumet is not the type to try and shake things up too badly, you know. But now she’s got a whole bunch of her peers about to commit fraud and feel like heroes doing it, so….” He sniffed, which was a mistake, because the camel smelled like hot wet camel, and also chose that moment to shake some of the sand off its neck. “Mrgh. I’m nearly finished with her, anyway. Was just gonna give her one last little push when we get to Alexandria.”

_FORGET THAT_, the camel growled, its face altogether too close to Crawly’s for comfort. _THERE ARE BIGGER FISH TO FRY._

“What… kind of fish, lord?” Crawly asked warily.

The camel chuckled, a sound Crawly hoped to never hear again. _SOME SORT OF HEAVENLY TRIPE, ISN’T IT, CRAWLY? A FISH OUT OF WATER… A GOD OUT OF HEAVEN, WALKING ON LAND. EAST OF HERE IN NAZARETH. A HOLY INCARNATION UNLIKE ANY OTHER._ The camel shuddered, and so did Crawly.

“That does sound fishy, lord.”

_OH, COME NOW, CRAWLY. DON’T ACT AS IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW._

Crawly gulped and broke out into a sweat—may as well, with how hot it was. “Ngm?”

_IS THIS MESSIAH NOT THE SAME CHILD WHOSE EARTHLY FATHER YOU TEMPTED IN YOUR REPORT?_

“Oh! Oh _that_ child! Of course!! Ahh!” Crawly made a show of smacking his hands to his forehead in amazement, which had the added benefit of giving him a moment to hide his eyes so they wouldn’t give him away. “I—gk—I-yeeh thought he was just a prophet! That’s what I wrote in my report, lord, just a prophet. Should have known!”

_THERE IS ALSO A PROPHET, BORN AROUND THE SAME TIME. EASY MISTAKE.** DON’T MAKE IT AGAIN.**_

“Yes, lord.”

“Lady Tanis?” someone called from behind Crawly, at the exact same moment Satan got tired of speaking through a camel and chose instead to directly insert his instructions into Crawly’s mind. “Don’t you want to refill your skins?”

It was very difficult to focus on making words come out of his mouth when his brain was full of invasive images, concepts, and imperatives, all flashing at him at once.

“Rrrright,” he croaked, not confident he’d actually said a genuine word at all. “Yeah.”

Joseph and Mary were there, and a hazy image of the child, no longer toddling, but running, sprouted up into the leanness of an active boyhood, his hair long enough to cover his ears. There was Jesus’ cousin, John, a few months older. He saw the house where he’d first slithered in to tempt Joseph, and witnessed Gabriel’s appearance. And he knew the quickest route back there, both by camel and as the crow flies.

Half dazed, Crawly had to look around himself to register what he’d been asked mere seconds ago, and the sight of the others filling their skins with water by the river got him moving. He didn’t actually need water, but it wouldn’t do to let the humans know that, so he quickly dipped the skins in the stream and hurried back to his camel, staring it hard in the eye until it spat at him again.

“Bad camel,” Crawly grunted with relief.

Still, it wasn’t a pleasure to climb back up onto it and face another couple of hours ride at the mercy of its herky-jerky gait and his own inner squirming. And the sight of more browbeaten farmers and peasants being watched over by Roman soldiers was not a good enough distraction.

There was really no arguing with a direct order from Satan. It wasn’t so much going to Nazareth that Crawly worried about—it was what he might get pulled back into while he was there. And what would Satan ask of him once he got there? Try and destroy Jesus before he got any older? The thought made Crawly’s mind turn frantic as a rat caught in a grain barrel, scrabbling for some way out.

But there were no such orders yet. And that was the comfort he repeated to himself, all the way until dusk.

…

Crawly didn’t like goodbyes, regardless of how much he liked or loathed a person. And he wasn’t in the mood to come up with excuses for his disappearance, so he merely asked one servant girl, up late tending the camels, to pass on the message that business had come up and Tanis would not be accompanying the caravan any further.

The night was still balmy by the time Crawly found the right spot. He would have had to walk far into the desert to be out of sight of the farmlands. Instead, he walked up a shallow irrigation canal in a grove of fig trees, the darkness between the walls of their large, thick leaves much heavier than it had been in the rest of the settlement. The smell of fallen fruit slowly rotting into the earth was sweet all around him, the water sloshing into his sandals nearly lukewarm. He parted his lips to taste the night, and sensed no one looking at him.

Black wings spread, stretched satisfyingly like Crawly was just getting out of bed. He flexed them a few times to release the tension, and cracked his neck with a quick jerk of his head before beating the warm, sweet air down toward the earth.

He could make himself small, relatively speaking: a dark-feathered bird with long thin legs burst upward from the fig trees, wings causing less air to rustle than if he’d been human sized. Still, anyone looking up would have said they’d rarely seen a heron quite that big.

The air grew cold from altitude, and below him, the dunes became faint ripples of grey like wrinkles on black silk, campfires and lanterns showing up as dull sparks scattered from a dying fire. The air rushed past him in icy blasts with each new beat of his wings. The cold didn’t bother him, and there was no way in heaven he was going to ride the rest of the way to Nazareth on a camel. Besides, this was the fastest way back. Satan could only commend him for being diligent.

Unfortunately, there was another reason on Crawly’s mind for haste. Well, not on his mind, exactly. He didn’t let himself think about it, keeping it deeper, where it couldn’t be examined. A feeling, deep in his gut, like the instinct to run from danger. Only Crawly had the feeling he was running—flying full-speed—toward danger instead.

…

The house was nearly the same as it had been before Jesus was born. Unmistakably lived in by now, of course—there were a few goats in a pen adjacent to the house, bleating away in the milky dawn light, and the donkey too, a little older and greyer than last Crawly had seen it. The windows had reed mats covering them much like Khnumet’s, and a few neglected pieces of laundry hung from lines strung between one of the windows and a few nearby posts.

Crawly lurked on his belly—as one must do when one is a snake—in the crevice of what one might loosely call a rock wall, being a mostly orderly stack of rocks near a patch of stiff grass and wild onion. He was waiting for the sun to come up, and though he was still pointedly ignoring the cold as he had been the entire night, it wasn’t hard at all to stay still, body and mind grown tired from his long flight.

In fact, he was halfway asleep when the sound of an opening and closing door startled him out of his stupor. Then came a quick pattering of feet, and Crawly peeked his serpentine head out of the crevice just far enough to see the back of a child with a mop of wavy brown hair, letting himself through the gate to greet the goats and donkey on the other side.

Jesus was talking to them, in full sentences—well, of course he was. He wasn’t an infant anymore, trying for bare approximations of names. Crawly stuck his head out just a little further, the better to hear him.

“I know, I know, it’s time to eat your breakfast. I’ll have it out for you in a second if you let me through.” Jesus’ voice was a soft laugh, nearly drowned out by the urgent bleating. “Shh! Aw, Motek, you need a milking. I’ll tell mama after I feed you. How’s your water?”

The donkey, not to be left out, started up a deafening bray that had Jesus covering his ears and laughing nervously.

“Achi, quiet,” Jesus soothed in half a whisper. “I’m coming, I’m coming, it’s okay!”

The kid ducked and squirmed his way through the marauding goats, some of them taller than he was, and reached out to stroke the donkey’s nose. The beast instantly calmed.

Crawly slithered up on top of the rocks, needing a higher vantage point if he wasn’t to lose the boy in the crowd of animals. Jesus moved smoothly away from Achi and climbed up onto a short set of mud brick steps to lift the latch on a small recess where the grain for the animals was kept. He scooped a bunch of it into a little bucket hanging by a nail, and hopped down.

For a moment Crawly was sure the boy was about to be trampled, so furiously did the beasts crowd around him to get at the grain. But Jesus didn’t seem fazed, and the instant he threw the grain expertly into the trough, the animals left him and crowded around that instead, braying and bleating trailing off into chomping, leaving him free to slip back out the gate and go up on tiptoes to peer into the water barrel positioned by the roof.

“It’s almost gone,” Jesus said quietly to himself. There were a couple of large pots and buckets next to the barrel. Jesus seemed to consider for a moment before struggling to hoist the biggest one off the ground, nearly toppling it over in the process. Giving up on that one, he tried the smaller one next, and though it was obviously awkward for him to carry even when empty, the boy eagerly left the little yard with it banging against his knees, no attention to spare for the snake that slithered quietly after him.

As Crawly smoothed over Jesus’ footprints with his sinuous movements, he wondered. The boy certainly wasn’t being treated like a king by his earthly parents, what with the chores and all, but Gabriel had _told_ them he was the Son of God. Maybe they’d been instructed not to spoil him. Or maybe Jesus was doing the chores to keep up appearances. Or maybe Jesus, thus far, was a mostly-ordinary kid with no idea who he really was, who had no better idea of what God expected of him than Crawly had.

Just a little boy, waking up early to feed and pet the animals, and fetch water from the well. Jesus was hoisting on the well’s rope now, pulling up a loudly sloshing bucket of water with great effort. Crawly watched him struggle and slipped closer and closer along the sand until he was only a stone’s throw away. A child’s stone’s throw, at that.

He could have made himself much smaller, if he’d thought about it. As it was, he’d only gone about halfway between full-size python and harmless dwarf racer, and was still rather on the large side. Curiosity, then, kept Crawly from hiding or changing when Jesus turned around with his half-full bucket in both hands, having to set it down on the ground every other step.

It took about six steps before Jesus looked up, panting, spotted Crawly blocking his path, and went very, very still.

His eyes were the same as Crawly remembered, beautifully dark brown, but his face had grown into them just a bit, even gone wide as they were in fear. Yes, fear, of course it had to be. What would he do? Scream, throw rocks, call for his parents—or his Parent? Crawly raised his head off the ground a bit more, tasting the air for signs of that fear, but all he smelled was water and sand and the regular smells of a child who’d just been mobbed by goats.

“Hello,” Jesus said curiously. “What are you doing here? You’re a different kind of snake, aren’t you? So big….”

Surely he didn’t expect Crawly to reply. But suppose he did? Jesus was half supernatural entity himself, after all. The terrifying thought that Jesus might recognize him struck Crawly.

“Where did you come from?” Jesus let go of the bucket and crouched down to look at him more closely, coming nearly nose to nose with Crawly so that it was all the demon could do not to shrink back too much.

Still, Crawly did not reply. He contracted the rest of his body, coiling himself closer in case he needed to make a quick getaway.

“Ohh. You must be thirsty.” Jesus dipped his hands in the bucket of water and held them out, cupped, toward Crawly’s face. “Here.”

_Don’t need it, _Crawly hissed in amusement, slithering a wide circle around the boy. _Besides, a bit risky accepting water from a holy source._

“Holy?” Jesus blinked and twisted to keep facing Crawly. He sipped the water from his own hands so it wouldn’t go to waste.

Crawly stopped. _You understand me?_

“Course I do,” said Jesus, shuffling in his crouch to face Crawly more fully. “What’s your name?”

_You ask a lot of questions. _It was an obvious deflection, but Crawly was desperate to find out just how much of his own nature the child knew.

“Is that bad?” Jesus asked. Brown eyes tracked Crawly calmly as he began to slither again, completing his circle around the boy.

_What are you doing, serving the humans? Don’t you know who you are?_

“They’re just chores,” Jesus shrugged. “And I like the animals. Anyway, my parents are tired, and papa hurt his hand at work yesterday, so I thought I could help get the water.”

_So, you do know…?_

“Know what?”

“JESUS! JESUS DON’T MOVE!”

How had Crawly missed the door opening and closing again? He turned his snakey head to see Joseph standing—or half crouching, more like—in the path, hands outstretched, face twisted in horror at the sight of the enormous snake coiled around his stepchild.

“Okay, okay I’ve distracted it,” Joseph said breathlessly as he edged closer. “Ahh, Jesus, just, just run as fast as you can, and I’ll—” Joseph looked around and grabbed the biggest rock within arm’s reach.

“It’s okay, papa,” Jesus urged, standing up from his crouch. “He’s not hurting me. We were just talking.”

“Wh—talking?” Joseph sputtered.

“Yes. Oh, and you’re not going to hurt the animals either, are you?” Jesus looked down at Crawly expectantly, and for a wrenching moment there was something very familiar—cosmically, deeply familiar—about that gaze. “Not our animals, anyway.”

Crawly shook his head, a most un-snake-like gesture, but it was worth it to see the look of absolute shock on Joseph’s face. He slithered off to the side of the path and coiled up a bit before looking back at the boy, feeling unsettled.

“Thanks. If you have to eat any animals, you should probably eat the wild ones so people don’t get scared and try to kill you.”

Jesus ran over to Joseph, who hoisted him up into his arms with a gasp of relief and clung to him.

“You can’t—you—you shouldn’t be so friendly with snakes, Jesus,” Joseph breathed out shakily. “It could have bitten you or… or squeezed you to death.”

“But he wasn’t going to,” Jesus began, his argument drowned in the hasty footsteps of Joseph carrying him back to the house. The slamming of the door blocked the rest fully from Crawly’s hearing.

Up the hill, in the shadow of a large rock, Crawly changed. The black scales became black linen in the Hebrew style, ankle-length. His hair came back, long and red as before. Dark leather sandals appeared on his feet. It felt good to be back in this shape.

He stood up straight, and sauntered down the hill toward town, pointedly avoiding any animals that might ask him, in Satan’s falsely cordial way, to report on what he’d done—or in this case hadn’t done—to the holy child. He needed time to think, and early morning was the best part of the day for a walk, apart from the middle of the night of course.

Jesus probably didn’t know he’d been talking to a demon. Either that or he was just the type of holy being who thought he could ask nicely and everything in the cosmos would obey him. Well, why shouldn’t he, if he knew he was the Son of God?

Crawly couldn’t decide what it all meant. He needed more information. But first, first, he needed to calm down. There was something in those eyes that had set him nearly trembling, a recognition, an expectation of cooperation that was at once harmless and impossible to resist. It was chillingly familiar.

What he needed, Crawly decided, was a drink. Finding somewhere open at this hour was the trouble, but Crawly had a good imagination, and when he strolled into the town’s only drinking establishment, he found that the keeper of it had just so happened to open up early on a whim.

…

“So, young lady… _now_ are you going to tell me what happened to your eyes?”

Crawly sighed into his drink for nearly the dozenth time that morning—well, afternoon, now. Even with the help of slight demonic influences, some flattery, and a little bit of alcohol, the man serving him the drinks still kept coming back to this question.

“This is why I prefer cities,” Crawly muttered half to himself. “Sir, if you were better traveled you might realize that people from faraway lands simply look _different._”

The man nodded with pursed lips, arms folded on the countertop. “They’re just… astonishing, that’s all. I’ll warn you, Joseph might be a bit wary to do business with someone so… exotic.”

“I’m sure I can persuade him. He seems like a kindhearted man, from what you’ve said about their engagement.” In fact he had no intention yet of getting involved with Jesus’ parents, but he’d had to give the man a reasonable cause to be minding their business. Unfortunately, all Crawly had gotten out of the man so far were things he already knew, and a few anecdotes about how Jesus seemed to be growing up well. Though odd things sometimes happened around the family, it was “probably just exaggeration,” and all three were held in decent enough regard.

“It wouldn’t do for you to repeat much of what I’ve told you, miss, as it’s mostly rumor anyway. But you are right, he is kind. Never overcharges for his work, or cuts corners either.”

Crawly waved his hand dismissively. “I’m not here to stir up trouble against his family. I just appreciate having an idea of a person’s character before entering any contract with them.”

“That’s wise of you, miss,” said the man. He drummed his fingers on the counter, straightened, and blinked expectantly a few times. “Is there uh, anything else I might help you with? If Joseph isn’t interested in business with you, we might be able to arrange something….”

Oh, great. That old stupid look was creeping into the man’s wandering eyes, and Crawly realized he’d passed the point of being a fascination and was now being seen as a temptation unto itself. And that kind of temptation had never been Crawly’s style.

“Just… one more thing,” Crawly said sweetly. “You might remember a white-haired… man, who accompanied the family back from Egypt a few years ago. He’s an acquaintance of mine. That’s how I heard about Joseph’s carpentry skill. Has a soft, kind sort of face. Does any of that sound familiar?”

“Oh, you mean Aziraphale?”

Crawly nearly spit out an entire mouthful of substandard beer. “You know him?”

“He lives just over in Sepphoris, comes over here pretty frequently to visit people… mostly Joseph’s family. He’s basically the one who got Joseph set to work rebuilding over there, since it got sacked a few years ago. Helps make sure the workers from the villages are healthy and treated well, that sort of thing…wonderful man, especially for a gentile.”

“Oh.” Crawly forced a not-at-all-nervous smile onto his face. “That’s good news.”

“Shall I tell him you’re looking for him, if I see him?”

“What? No. I mean, no, that’s kind of you, but I’d rather surprise him.”

“Ah.” The man’s face looked vaguely disappointed, and he cleared his throat, but said nothing.

“Right. Think I fancy a walk,” Crawly said suddenly, pushing the half-drank beer back across the counter, along with some money which hadn’t been under his palm or anywhere on his person a moment before. “Nice talking to you.”

“Oh, ah, you too,” said the man, distracted by the tip just as Crawly had hoped.

Out in the streets, foot traffic was picking up, people rushing to get errands done while it was still cool. Crawly kept his head down, eyes half-lidded to lower the risk of being singled out, and walked quickly toward the edge of town, where he might find a nice warm spot to coil up for a few hours, out of sight.

He hadn’t expected to hear news of Aziraphale so quickly. But this was a small town, after all, a speck on the map compared to any of the real cities nearby. And Gabriel, it seemed, was continuing to delegate to lesser angels the messy human side of supervising the Christ-child’s upbringing.

Hell knew, though. Satan knew about Jesus now, and Crawly couldn’t decide which would be worse—downplaying the boy’s divinity in his reports, or exaggerating it. If he said Jesus was nothing to worry about, then Down Below might expect him to make short work of the kid. If he said Jesus was too much for him to handle, they might send more demons for backup rather than taking the hint to leave well enough alone. He was going to have to play this very, very carefully.

It was only luck—or at least Crawly hoped so—that he happened to look up just as Joseph was taking his leave of Mary and Jesus at a crossroads, riding the longsuffering donkey away to work at a weary trot.

Crawly shrank back behind the corner of a building to ensure they passed by without spotting him. He probably needn’t have bothered, since Mary was halfway down the road already when Crawly peeked at them. A moment later he was successfully tailing the pair at a safe distance.

As soon as he pinpointed exactly which dwelling they were headed for, Crawly left the path, slipping down toward a scrubby stand of acacia trees and rocks where a flock of hooded crows were making a racket. Crawly noticed a smell of decaying vegetable matter once he’d reached the little thicket, and realized the birds must have decided this particular dumping ground was a great place to pick up brunch.

“Now don’t any of you dare swoop me,” Crawly said sternly to them once he’d confirmed he was out of sight of the road. “Or I may just swallow you to prove a point.”

One of them did swoop down just to spite him, but stopped short on a branch, cackling in a raspy, throaty way. _HOW’S IT GOING, CRAWLY?_

Crawly swallowed and kicked a small rock. This was exactly what he’d been hoping against. “Rck… rendez… what’s the word… _reconnaissance!_ On reconnaissance now, lord.”

_AND WHAT HAVE YOU GOT FOR ME? _Ugh, Satan sounded delighted. That was always a bad sign. Or a good sign, depending on who you were.

“Well, er… he can talk to snakes,” Crawly offered with a hopeful grimace, cogs awhirl in his mind. “Seems a bit taken with me actually. I think I can work with him.”

_WORK WITH HIM? THAT’S LUDICROUS. _Satan sounded impressed.

“Thank you, lord.” Crawly allowed himself a small grin and a quirk of the eyebrows before stretching out into his full, scaly length; all the other birds burst into raucous flight, leaving just the one poor possessed fellow still hopping about restlessly on its branch. _Just think of the chaos upstairs if Their child was on our side._

The bird cackled. _I’M WAY AHEAD OF YOU, CRAWLY. EVEN IF HE CAN’T BE TURNED, IT’S A GOOD CHANCE TO TEST HIM FOR WEAKNESSES. GO WORK YOUR MAGIC, DARLING._

_Yes, lord. _Crawly bared his fangs for dramatic effect, and, hoping this meant he was dismissed, dropped down to slither cautiously toward the house.

Mary and Jesus, who had been shielding their eyes and gazing up at the black and white cloud of unsettled crows, were interrupted by another woman running out of the house to meet them. She and Mary embraced, and Crawly couldn’t help but notice Jesus staring expectantly at the doorway of the home. As he glided closer, he could hear them talking. It also helped that Jesus cupped his hands around his mouth and began shouting toward the house.

“JOHN! JOHN?”

“Oh, John’s not back yet,” said the other woman. “He went with his father to help at the synagogue.”

“Oh.” Jesus looked disappointed for a moment, then brightened. “Mama, can I go ask Daniel if he wants to play?”

“What do you think, Elizabeth?” Mary asked. “I don’t know Daniel’s family very well….”

“If you want to play with him, invite him over here,” Elizabeth advised with a shrewd glance at the nearest neighboring house. “And stay within sight of the back windows.”

Jesus looked to Mary for confirmation, and at her small nod the boy’s face lit up. “Thank you!” he cried, and hop-skipped away from the adults, doing half of Crawly’s work for him.

There was a convenient bush a snake might curl up under and watch from, as Jesus knocked on the door and gazed at it eagerly, waiting for it to open. A tired-looking woman answered, peering down from beneath confused eyebrows.

“Hi,” said Jesus. “Can Daniel play?”

“Do I know you?” Daniel’s mother (Crawly presumed) squinted at Jesus suspiciously.

“I’m John’s cousin,” Jesus said, smiling. “My name’s Jesus. We play all the time when Daniel comes over.”

“DANIEL,” the woman yelled over her shoulder. “C’MERE.”

A stringy boy who looked maybe three or four years older than Jesus slinked up to the doorway. “Where’s John?” he asked, hanging back a little behind his mother.

“He’ll be back soon. Come on, mama said we can play.”

“I think I’ll wait until John gets here,” said Daniel.

“Just go play,” Daniel’s mother scolded, nearly shoving him out the door. “And be nice.”

“Ugh, but he’s—” Daniel was cut off by the door closing, and he gave a pointed whole-body slump in response. “I don’t want to play little kid games.”

“We could play big-kid games, if you want,” Jesus said. “What are they like?”

“You wouldn’t like them.” Daniel groaned. “Fine, we’ll just play hide and seek or something stupid like that.”

_What a drama queen_, Crawly thought.

“What about we play Moses?”

“We don’t have enough people to play Moses,” Daniel groaned again, tromping aimlessly around the rocky, scrubby expanse between the two houses. “I’d just be yelling at you while you go around swiping brush all over the doors pretending it’s blood.”

“Actually I like the staff part better.”

“What, parting the sea?” Daniel kicked a rock, clearly aiming for it to go far, and scowled when instead it flubbed. “Besides, I never get to be Moses.”

“Oh, you can be Moses this time if you want,” Jesus offered earnestly. “And I can be Pharaoh. But actually, I like the part where the staff turns into the snake.” Crawly made a mental note to mention that in his next report to Head Office. “Guess what? I used to live in Egypt when I was a baby.”

“Yeah yeah, you told me that already! Look, let’s just go hunting for lizards or something. If you can catch a lizard, _then_ I’ll play Moses with you.”

“I’m gonna catch two lizards, then,” Jesus said excitedly, and tore off toward the back of Elizabeth’s house. Daniel cast a longing look toward the door his mother had closed on him and then smirked and strolled after the younger boy, seeming resigned to watching Jesus make a fool of himself if nothing else.

Their backs were turned, so it wasn’t too hard for Crawly to escape their notice, his movement nearly soundless in the sand and coarse gravel of the shallow hillside. He was stuck behind Daniel’s dawdling, but luckily Jesus didn’t get too far ahead before slowing to a stealthy tip-toed gait; perhaps he’d spotted his first target already.

“Daniel,” Jesus hissed. “There’s one under that big rock. You go around to the other side and make sure it doesn’t run away.”

“How big is it?” Daniel asked, creeping around to the other side.

“It’s just normal,” Jesus said, crouching to peer carefully at his prey. “But it’s shiny.”

“Oh right, I see it.”

The boys closed their shoddy trap, and as Crawly expected, their brief lunge resulted in cries of excitement as the lizard darted between their fingers and toward a small ravine where heavy rainfall had cut a track in the hillside. The boys gave chase quickly at first, then urged each other to slow down: “don’t scare it.”

It was like watching kittens trying to catch string. Jesus and Daniel were clumsy at it, moving in fits and spurts before freezing, their heads and eyes tracking their targets’ movement as if entranced. They scurried back and forth, never seeming to grow tired of chasing the poor little reptile. Crawly watched them, wondering how much longer he could reasonably wait before intervening.

Just as he was moving closer in a bid to “help” the boys with their hunt, Jesus squealed loudly, rising from his crouch—the glossy black-scaled skink he’d caught wriggled madly and went flying back toward the ground, leaving its disconnected tail writhing between Jesus’ fingers.

The boy’s mouth and eyes flew wide in horror and he quickly threw the tail down as well, while Daniel scrabbled through the dust and yelled “_Gotcha!_”

“No, let her go!” Jesus cried. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

“It just dropped its tail, it doesn’t hurt. They do that to get away from snakes.” Daniel rose up, the skink twisting and turning in the air, held by one leg until Daniel got a better grip on it with both hands.

“What?” Jesus’ voice was shaking. He looked close to tears, skirting around the still-moving tail he’d dropped. “But she was scared. I could feel it.”

“No you can’t,” Daniel scoffed. “It’s just a lizard.”

“I _could_ feel it!” Jesus insisted. “She’s so scared. We should let her go.”

“I wonder if they can drop their toes too?”

“Daniel! Let her go!” Jesus commanded.

Crawly froze in his stealthy approach, fully expecting that the same inaudible thunderclap that just shook him was going to humble the older boy. But Daniel didn’t seem aware of the quiet divinity rising up in his playmate. The boy just gave a grumpy sigh.

“Seriously, Jesus, it’s just a lizard. You’re so weird. Anyway, if we let it go, it might get eaten. I think I’m going to keep it, maybe use it to scare my sister.”

“No!” Jesus pleaded, reaching for her, but Daniel was taller and his arms were much longer. “Daniel, please let her go. She wants to go home.”

“It’s my pet now; I can do what I want with it.”

“Daniel!” Jesus was starting to cry, but it was an angry cry, his little hands in fists in the other boy’s shirt.

Crawly chose that moment to rise up from the brush, expanding to his full size. Daniel’s scream didn’t quite make it out of his throat, turning into a strangled squeak instead as he threw the lizard at Crawly’s open mouth and bolted for the house.

The terrified skink landed halfway down Crawly’s throat before he quite knew what was happening. He spat it out immediately, and watched it run off before he let himself shrink a bit and turned his attention back to Jesus.

The boy’s eyes were still wide, mouth dropped open, and he stood rooted the spot.

_Scared of me yet?_ Crawly asked, the unpleasant sensation of the half-swallowed skink still moving in his throat like an afterimage.

“It’s you.” Jesus blew out a breath and scrubbed at the last few tears that were racing to reach his chin. “You’re the snake I talked to this morning, right?”

_Might be_, Crawly said.

“Thank you.”

Crawly recoiled. _Save it. I just didn’t like him. You should have socked him in the face. Or, y’know, smote him_ some_how._

Jesus took a deep breath, seeming to gather himself. It was strange to see such a self-soothing action in such a small person. “He didn’t know what he was doing. He doesn’t know how she feels.”

_Stupid kid didn’t even know she’s not a lizard_, Crawly agreed.

“She’s not?” Jesus’ eyebrows pinched together for a second.

_Skink. Maybe _I _should have bitten him._

“No!” Jesus cried. “Daniel’s my friend.”

_You sure about that? He didn’t seem to care much for you. Anyway, God smites the wicked. Don’t see why you can’t do the same thing._

“He just doesn’t know how to be a good friend yet,” Jesus said in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice. “But he still plays with me. He doesn’t want to be mean…he’s just still learning to be nice.”

Crawly lowered his head, watching the house. Any minute now, someone would probably come running out to see what Daniel had screamed about, but for now all was quiet.

_So, you can understand animals_, Crawly thought aloud, restlessly moving as his body grew smaller in case he needed to hide. _Any idea why?_

“Well, mama says it’s because angels blessed me before I was born, to be a special child of the Most High.” Jesus sniffed, his tears finally done. “I wish more people could do it, though. Then they would be nicer.”

_What would They make you so special for?_ Crawly asked curiously. _What’s the point?_

“I dunno…to help people, I think? You ask a lot of questions too,” Jesus laughed tearily, crouching next to him. “My name’s Jesus. Now you tell me your name. That’s how you make friends, okay?”

Crawly was about to deflect again when one of the crows from earlier landed close by, pecking at the weakly twitching tail the skink had left behind.

_Crow_, Crawly said without thinking, wary of Satan’s presence.

“Your name is Crow?” Jesus’ little face twisted into an exaggerated look of incredulity.

_No_. Crawly hissed and lunged at the crow in question; it took the hint and flew off immediately. _Since when do snakes have names?_

“You’re a special kind of snake, though,” Jesus said. “You should have one. Maybe I’ll call you… ummm….”

_What else can you do that other people can’t?_

“Well, everybody could probably learn how to talk to you if they really tried,” Jesus said confidently.

_Don’t think so._

“Oh. I dunno then. Wait! Maybe something like this?” Jesus kicked one of his sandals off and grinned as it sailed exceptionally high, over his head, and landed with a soft plop nearby.

Crawly just stared at him in disbelief. Still a kid, he reminded himself. He really had no idea what his purpose was going to be.

_Astounding. That’ll really help stop the Roman occupation._

“Huh?”

_What are you going to be when you get older? _Crawly knew how suspect it looked for him to circle Jesus like this, but he couldn’t help it; it was second nature. First nature, possibly, though he didn’t like to think about that. _What do you see yourself doing?_ At least if Satan was watching, he would probably consider this an adequate attempt at scoping out their foe.

“Oh, I’m probably going to make things like my papa. He’s the best at making things in the whole world! And then I’m going to travel everywhere and make nice houses and things for people and teach them how to talk to animals and be nice.”

_Which one?_ It struck Crawly that, as the humans in this part of the world tended to refer to God as male, Jesus might speak of Them the same way.

“Huh? Which one?”

_Which papa?_

“My papa,” Jesus said, close to rolling his eyes. “I just said that! His name is Joseph.”

_Just checking._

“Maybe I’ll call you Scaly.” Jesus reached for Crawly’s smooth scales with a small, soft hand, but Crawly quickly slid out of his reach, not yet ready for Jesus to know much more about him. It seemed he was only partially omniscient at this point—perhaps could only perceive the unseen through touch. Letting him find out he was talking to a demon had no positive outcome that Crawly could see.

_Scaly? How creative_, Crawly drawled.

“Thanks. It just makes sense because you’re scaly. You’re just as shiny as that liz—uh—skink. Maybe I should think of more names and then decide. I could call you Skink.”

_That’s just as bad as Crow_, Crawly hissed with laughter before he caught himself. He was enjoying this too much. He needed to think, hard.

“Where do you live?” Jesus asked.

_Don’t really live anywhere. The whole world is my home._

Jesus tilted his head and sat down fully on the ground, apparently tired of crouching. “But where do you sleep at night?”

_Anywhere that suits me._

“Are you going to go away soon? Will I see you again tomorrow?”

Crawly was saved from having to consider an answer by Daniel’s mother coming out her front door and hollering.

“You! Jesus! What are you doing out there by yourself? Daniel said a big snake nearly ate him!”

“He’s not _that _big,” Jesus called back. “Not anymore. And he’s not mean.”

“What, it’s _yours?_ Keep it away from Daniel!” Concern turned to anger in the woman’s voice.

“No, it’s—he’s not—” Jesus was cut off by the slamming door, and sighed. “Sorry… everyone’s scared of you.”

_They’re supposed to be scared._

“Aren’t you sad?”

Crawly shook his snakey head for the second time that day.

“At least I can be your friend,” said Jesus.

Crawly was still grasping for an appropriate response to that wrenching, ludicrous statement when Jesus suddenly shot to his feet.

“John! Hey!!”

A boy the same age as Jesus was walking beside his elderly—father? Grandfather? He stopped and waved at Jesus, and began walking toward him.

“Hi!”

_See you later._ Crawly began to slither off.

“What? Hey! Where are you going?”

Crawly didn’t reply, hurrying to find a nice vantage point from which he could hide and still watch them. The conversation had carried on a bit too long, gotten too friendly too fast. He could feel himself quickly falling into the same trap he had when Jesus was an infant, and he was determined to stop himself this time.

Besides, John probably wouldn’t be any less terrified than Daniel had been.

“Scaly! Skink! Wait!”

“Who are you talking to?” John’s voice was amused.

“I made friends with a really big snake.” Jesus’ voice was already getting hard to hear as Crawly rushed across the ground.

“You what?” John laughed incredulously. “You’re so weird.”

“He’s really nice! You’ll see, come on. I bet we can find him.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea….”

“I’m telling you, he’s really nice. I know what I’m talking about. Don’t you believe me?”

“Okay, okay, I believe you!”

Crawly made himself smaller and smaller, slipping under a rock he would never have fit under a moment ago. It felt dreadfully cramped—not just the space, but the body itself. But he waited there, patiently, until the pitter-patter of children’s feet moved away from his hideout and left him free to emerge and watch them play under the burning, brilliant sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. The whole socio-political situation in Egypt seems pretty complex at this time in history, and I don't know if the cursory research I did is enough, so there might be some pretty glaring flaws to anyone who's actually studied the era. But I read that most Egyptians were not really considered Roman citizens while under Roman occupation unless they were also proven citizens of Alexandria, or if they volunteered for Roman army service. Citizenship afforded them more privileges and protections from whippings and other punishments. So I decided to work that in to Crowley's temptation of Khnumet, playing on her attachment to her status in Egypt's previous social hierarchy.  
2\. Sepphoris was sacked shortly after Jesus' birth (by a local rebel named Judas) and then rebuilt by order of Herod's successor to become the "Ornament of Galilee", so it became a successful Roman-loyal city for a while with attractions like bathhouses, mosaics, and a Roman theater. Some people theorize that Jesus and Joseph may have traveled there to do carpentry work, because it was only 6 kilometers north-northwest of Nazareth.  
3\. Crowley's heron form is based off a Goliath Heron which is the biggest heron, typically found in sub-Saharan Africa. Google it, it's cool. Could be up to 5 ft tall!!


	7. Chapter 7

“Do you believe in God?”

They were walking together in a shallow ravine. Well, Jesus was walking, and Crawly was slithering, and they were side by side, not heading anywhere in particular. Just talking. It was a fairly mild day, the clouds sheltering them from the sun. It might even rain.

The question Jesus had just asked was a laughable one to Crawly. Or at least it had been the first few times someone had thought to pose it to him. It was always humans asking, of course, but the askers always had certain assumptions about what his answer would mean. 

_Why do you ask?_

“I just wonder, do animals know God made them all? Do you miss Him and want to go back to Him like everyone else?”

_You’re asking the wrong snake_, Crawly snickered, because there was no point in getting too personal. Jesus was asking about animals, not demons.

“But don’t you wonder what will happen when you die?” Jesus looked at him expectantly.

_That’s an awfully serious question for such a small boy._

“I don’t think so. I just think you’re a nice snake, so you should go to heaven.”

_What’s got you thinking so hard about death?_

Jesus shrugged a little. He picked up a long stick that had fallen from a nearby tree and stripped off the extraneous twigs so he could whip it through the air and along the ground without it snagging. “Yesterday I heard the rabbi say that human souls are the only ones that go to heaven. He said animal souls stay on earth, so when they die, they’re just… gone.”

_Only humans in heaven? What about angels?_

“Well, that’s different, I guess,” Jesus mumbled. 

_What makes this rabbi so sure about heaven anyway?_ Crawly asked slyly._ Has he been there?_

“He studies the scriptures. They tell him everything he’s supposed to know.” 

_But the scriptures were written by humans. Humans don’t remember heaven._

“God tells them what to write down.”

_Do you think an animal’s soul deserves to disappear forever? Bit sad, isn’t it? Does that seem like a heaven you would want to spend eternity in?_

Jesus’ little face fell, and Crawly almost regretted pushing so far. The boy was silent for a long minute, still walking and swinging his stick, though with less gusto now. 

Finally, Jesus stopped and looked down at him. “It makes me sad.” He plopped down on a rock. “God made you too, didn’t He?”

_So they say_. Crawly kept his head low, not looking at the child.

“If I made you, _I’d_ want to keep you.”

_What for? What’s a snake any good for?_ Crawly could feel himself getting distracted again. Tempting, tempting was his job; he was supposed to be influencing the child, away from heaven’s plan. 

“Well, lots of things! You’re good for talking to. And you’re very pretty and nice. Those are all good things, right? Are you sad you won’t get to be in heaven?”

Crawly flicked his tongue out, wanting a distraction. The air tasted heavy with dust and humidity, and he could also smell various animals that had passed this way. 

“I’m sad about it,” Jesus mumbled, when Crawly didn’t answer.

_What are you going to do about it?_ Crawly asked, raising his head to look Jesus straight in the eye.

Jesus swiped his over-long curls out of his eyes with the exaggerated thoughtfulness only a seven-year-old could possess. “Ummm.”

Crawly swayed slightly as the air turned restless. 

“I’m going to pray to God to change His mind about animals,” Jesus finally said. “Sometimes people can change His mind about things. At least I think so.”

_What if the answer is no? Wouldn’t you be angry?_

“It’s not going to be no. I bet God even lets good animals into heaven already, He just doesn’t tell anybody.”

_Still… doesn’t seem fair. Making so many kids like you sad. They don’t sound like a very nice person._

“Who doesn’t?” 

_God._

Jesus paused, head tilted. “Why don’t you say He?”

_Because it doesn’t make sense to._

“But the rabbis say God is our father. So that’s why we say He, isn’t it?”

_That’s just how humans tend to think. One thing or the other. Good or bad, black or white, he or she. It’s not that boring. I’m not, for starters._

“Oh.” Jesus paused for a moment. “Do snakes have rabbis?” 

The question felt so out of left field that Crawly hissed out a helpless laugh. 

“Hey, I’m serious!” Jesus protested. “Who teaches you about God and stuff?”

_I don’t know about other snakes._

“But _you_ already know about God… how did you know?” Jesus peered at him curiously, leaning forward over his knees in that uncanny way again, as if he almost wanted to touch noses. 

Crawly let himself pull back just a tad, enough to keep a comfortable distance but not enough to seem really afraid. 

Jesus’ eyes widened before Crawly could finish formulating a reply. “Have _you_ been to heaven?”

Crawly sputtered, an inarticulate hiss. _Hk-ss-What? Heaven? ME?! Don’t be ridiculous! I—bwuh—d-do I look like someone who would belong there?_

“I dunno.” Jesus hunched his shoulders and looked a bit sour, perhaps even offended. “I just thought you’ve been there for some reason. _I _think snakes belong in heaven, just like all the other animals, if they’re good.”

_After they die, maybe…._

Crawly had lost his train of thought. He’d been pushing toward something, trying to get at some spark of rebellion, to push Jesus further into a fog of doubt so he’d be easier to lead astray. But now he couldn’t quite think of how to steer the conversation back without being too obvious.

He’s seven, he reminded himself. But seven year olds were unpredictable. 

“So my rabbi probably does know more about heaven than you do,” Jesus thought aloud. He didn’t sound particularly thrilled about it.

Crawly could tell Jesus anything, and the kid would probably believe it, so long as Crawly sounded confident enough. He’d been wasting a perfect opportunity to take advantage of a child’s natural gullibility. The realization filled him from tip to tail with creeping unease. What was this kind of magnetic draw that seemed to throw all his plans helter-skelter? 

_I’m not just a snake, though,_ Crawly finally admitted.

It just so happened to be the same moment the heavens opened and began to pour bucketfuls of rain down on them. The first whiff of petrichor was quickly drowned out by gobs of mud filling the shallow ravine, and Jesus’ arms were over his head in a futile attempt at shelter. 

“I gotta go inside!” Jesus yelled, and rushed back toward home, quickly finding higher ground. At least he had some sense, Crawly noticed with approval.

It was about the only thing he approved of, just then, in the whole universe. 

_Yeah okay, thanks for the warning, I guess,_ he hissed up at the sky miserably, before struggling to writhe his way up the muddy hillside in search of higher, dryer ground. 

…

He had been watching Jesus secretly for a couple of weeks, trying to force the scattered armies of his thoughts to regroup into a solid Temptation Plan, or at least come up with something he could pass off to Head Office as one. Talking to the kid definitely hadn’t done his bad self any favors, so although Jesus’ eyes often wandered when he went out to ramble among the scrubby rocks, clearly searching the desert ground for something more than sticks to swish around, Crawly tried to keep his distance for the most part. 

He’d only slipped up twice this week—well, maybe three times—and it wasn’t _really_ slipping up, because he’d realized he couldn’t have Jesus thinking he was actively avoiding him, so it was best if he played it casual, chatted for a bit, and then made some excuse to slither away once he could feel his grasp on the situation slipping again.

Heading toward the house a bit late this morning, Crawly had expected to face another long day of nothing much happening in the little family. What he hadn’t expected was to hear crying as he approached, the hiccupping, unrestrained sobs of a child inconsolable. 

It was different from Jesus’ cry as a baby, but there was still something particular about it that Crawly was sure he would have noticed even if he’d heard it in a crowd. Before he quite realized it, he was moving faster across the sand, rushing to meet that pain head on and attack it. He came around the low stone wall and nearly ended up getting stepped on.

“W-w-wh-Sk-ink-m-ost-t-epped-uh-y-ou,” Jesus sobbed.

_Amazing I understood any of that_. Crawly followed the kid, who was still stumbling half-blind away from the house. _What happened?_

“Th-uh-h-eydidn—n’t eve-n te-ell me.”

_Ssssssh_, Crawly found himself hissing in an ill-fated attempt to soothe. _Let’s go find somewhere—_

“They ju-us-st took Achi a-w-way!” This one was wounded. Angry. “I di-idn’t g-h-get to say g-hd—bye.” 

Jesus dropped clumsily onto his backside, for all the world like that little infant again after Aziraphale had snatched him up and then set him down that first time in Egypt. He buried his face in his knees, the hurt howl a little muffled. 

Crawly circled the little ball of misery, coiling loosely round him but not touching, not sure exactly what to do. If anyone were to come along to investigate the crying child, seeing a massive snake cuddling him would surely cause enough drama to make Jesus’ day even worse than it already was, and the touch of scales was generally not the best sensation for comforting humans anyway.

Even as he thought to himself that this was absolutely not something any self-respecting demon should be doing, Crawly began compressing, reshaping, drawing inward and then back outward until he was kneeling on the ground in human form beside the little boy, propped up on one hand. 

Jesus hadn’t seen the transformation—his head was buried too deeply in his arms and legs. Crawly hesitated, his other hand hovering over the shuddering boy’s brown curls. 

“Uh,” he grunted, and cleared his throat before lightly touching his shoulder instead. A hot zing raced up his arm and he winced. “Jesus.”

Jesus lifted his head immediately, bloodshot eyes wide, lashes dark and wet, and he stopped shuddering as he stared into Crawly’s eyes without blinking. At first that was a relief, but then Crawly realized Jesus didn’t seem to be breathing at all. 

“Hi,” Crawly said awkwardly, and was just about ready to start patting the boy rather vigorously on the back (plausible deniability) when Jesus let out a rush of air and threw his arms around Crawly’s neck in a burning stranglehold. “Grk! Hgh-hey—”

“It’s _you!_ You _have_ b-been to heaven,” Jesus wept, smearing snot and tears into Crawly’s shoulder. “I knew you did. Ach-ch-i has to be there! He has to. He has to. _He has to!_” The kid was starting to sound frantic.

“Shh-shhgh, hey, easy,” Crawly choked out helplessly. Thousand-yard dash straight into the lion’s den: that was what he was doing right now. And for a lion’s cub, no less. Despite the way it stung like pins and needles, his hands rubbed slow circles in Jesus’ back. “It’s… it’s gonna be fine.”

“No it isn’t! I _hate_ that he died! Mama and papa don’t kn… don’t know... they did-didn’t know how he felt…they think I’m just…crying bec-cause I’m a kid! They’re ju-hust like Daniel.”

What did Jesus actually know? Apparently enough to feel existential dread on behalf of a donkey, and also enough to at least have a sense that Crawly had once had something to do with _somewhere_ not of this earth. Both thoughts made Crawly’s stomach cramp as if he’d swallowed a rock whole.

Jesus just clung to him, the belly-deep cries slowly easing into muffled whimpers. The chaotic heaving of the child’s breaths settled gradually, but Crawly’s shoulder and neck stayed painfully wet, and an icy-hot gush of fear and relief went through him as he realized Jesus’ tears must not count as holy water. Or if they did, they were extremely low strength.

“You’re right,” Crawly said in a low angry mutter, his whole body from the throat down burning with a dull ache from the child wrapped protectively in his arms. He couldn’t tell where that pain ended and the other kind began. “It’s not _fine._”

Jesus’ tears resurged after that, but only for a moment. He quieted then, shifting, slumping downward and curling up against Crawly in a way that made him forget to breathe. Or maybe it was just the holy ache moving into his lungs. Crawly gave his hands a break from the stinging and just held the boy loosely instead, amazed that no one else had come looking for him yet. 

“Your eyes are the same,” Jesus mumbled, so quietly that Crawly almost didn’t catch it. He sniffed and rubbed the back of his fist against his nose and eyes. “That’s how I knew it was you.”

“Oh,” said Crawly, relieved and unsettled both.

“What’s your name?” Jesus asked again, voice still a little unsteady from grief. 

Crawly breathed, just for the sake of getting something moving in his throat and lungs, clear out the itch of it all. And it was an excuse to take a moment, to think of what he wanted to say, though it had jumped to mind immediately. 

“Is it actually Crow, like you told me?”

“Crawly,” Crawly sighed.

“Crowley?” Jesus pulled away enough to blink up at him. 

“Crawl… Crowley,” Crawly tried, mouth and eyebrows askew as he considered it.

“Crowley,” Jesus repeated, and Crawly swallowed and swiped a thumb at a lingering teardrop on Jesus’ cheek without thinking. It got under his nail and stuck there like a paper-cut, and he only just stopped himself from hissing at it. 

“Sure, close enough,” Crawly said, in an attempt at being dismissive. He shook his hand in the air to try and dry it off. 

“Are you here to watch me?” Jesus asked, the grief still lingering around him even as it was tinged with curiosity.

_He’s on to me_, Crawly thought, but at this point it seemed a matter of course. He was in way over his head on this assignment. What was the point in lying?

“Yes,” Crawly admitted. And Jesus smiled. 

It was a shaky smile, the smile of a child who has been crying and isn’t completely sure he’s done crying yet. “Thanks.”

“Thanks?” Crawly nearly groaned. “What for?” 

But he never got his answer, because just then, a different shade of holiness wafted to him on the breeze, and he heard a very familiar voice humming in time with the skrit-skitch of sandals coming up the road. 

“Never mind that, I have to go now.” Crawly nervously eased Jesus off his lap. “Dry your eyes and go inside. I’ll be close by.” 

Jesus nodded and obeyed without question, much to Crawly’s shock. But it gave him time to quickly slither up into the little granary by the goat pen before Aziraphale came into view of the house. 

“Oh.” Aziraphale’s voice was soft and taken aback. The sound of his sandals stopped. “Oh, my dear boy, are you alright? What’s happened? You’ve been crying.”

A flash of irritation surprised Crawly. He pressed his wedged head closer to the cracks in the door, listening. All around him, the darkness was warm and filled with the dusty, earthy scent of grain.

“Um.” Jesus’ voice wobbled. _Don’t make him talk about it, angel._ “Achi died.” It came out tight and high.

“Achi? Achi the donkey?” An uncomfortable pause, wherein there were several loud sniffles. “Ahh… there, there. I’m sure he knew you loved him, and… well, isn’t that reassuring?”

Jesus said nothing to that. There was a rustling and the footsteps resumed, not quite masking the sounds of a child struggling to keep his breathing calm. The door to the house opened and closed, and Crawly recognized Mary’s voice next.

“Aziraphale! It’s good to see you. How has your week been going? Oh, Jesus….” Mary’s voice turned from welcome to sad sympathy on a dime, and Crawly imagined Jesus collapsing against the soft fabric swathing her, a much more appropriate place to wipe his tears. 

“Wonderfully, wonderfully,” Aziraphale said with tentative cheer. At least the angel had _some_ tact. Occasionally. “So sorry to hear of your loss.”

“Thank you for comforting him,” Mary said, so softly Crawly almost didn’t hear it. “I was a bit worried when he ran outside, but then I heard him talking to someone. I’m glad you were there.”

“Oh, ah, I’m not—”

“It wasn’t him, mama.” Jesus’ voice broke in clearly. “It was someone else. I think I have a guardian angel.” 

“You were… talking to an angel?” Mary asked, sounding only half as fazed as most mothers would be. Which is to say, full of amazement but not disbelief. 

Jesus must have nodded, because Aziraphale spoke after a beat. 

“Are you… w… what about this person did you… ah… could you describe them to me?” 

“Well… I don’t really know if it was a girl or a boy. But the angel helped me feel better, and we’ve talked before, lots of times. We’re friends, I think.”

Helped him feel better. Hmm. Well, it was nice to know the sunburnt feeling on his scales was worth it.

“Right. Ah. Could you describe a little _more_ about them?” Aziraphale’s voice took on that glowing tone that meant he was trying very hard not to seem out of his depth.

“Well the angel had red hair and it was long and I really think they’re my guardian angel, because… because they’ve been talking to me a lot, and helping me think about things, and they’re usually a snake.”

“A snake?” Mary and Aziraphale both said, in confusion and surprise, respectively.

“Is this the snake your father found you with a few weeks ago?” Mary asked.

“Yeah. I told you I was safe. You have to believe me!” 

“My dear child,” Aziraphale began, the glow in his voice starting to crack. “Dare I ask what sort of advice this sn—erm, angel, is giving you?”

“I dunno… the angel just listens to me, mostly, and asks me questions, and what I think about things, and tells me not to let people push me around, and that I’m right to be mad when people are mean.”

“Who’s been pushing you around?” The protective edge in Mary’s voice was satisfying to hear.

“Oh, nobody, it’s just Daniel wasn’t letting me help a liza—skink, we caught this pretty one and her tail broke off but it was a accident, and Daniel wanted to keep her, and he told me I was weird because I could tell she was scared and wanted to go home. Also don’t believe everything people say, because even rabbis can make mistakes sometimes. And also I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to.”

That was a bit milder than Crawly had put it, but he felt a tiny swell of pride that the last two lessons had stuck anyway. But it was barely detectable beneath the bitter knowledge that he was probably about to be run out of town.

“Anyway, that means he’s a guardian angel, right, mama?”

“Jesus,” Aziraphale said gently, in the same way a tracker’s footsteps were gentle. “May I ask, exactly where have you been meeting this… angel?” 

“Oh.” Jesus’ voice turned unmistakably guarded now. “I don’t want to tell you. Somebody might hurt him. Them. My angel.” 

“Oh, no, I would _never_,” Aziraphale said in an emphatic, Very Serious and not at all suspicious voice. “You see, I simply want to meet an angel too! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could _all_ be friends?”

Silence. Crawly could quite clearly imagine the distrustful look on the seven-year-old’s face, and wondered if it was accurate. There was something gratifying about the fact that the son of God trusted him, a literal snake he’d met only a few times, over a bona fide angel of Theirs. There was a part of him that very much wanted to burst in there and rub that fact in Aziraphale’s face as if he hadn’t a care in the world. It would go a little something like this: 

_Oh, hello Aziraphale! Good to see you again, how are you liking the small-town lifestyle? _

_Thou snake! Thou fiend! Get thee gone from mine holy charge or I’ll… I’ll…._

_Smite me? And have the Son of God upset with you? Come on angel, he’s already made his choice. He’s too sensible to play your side’s games for much longer. Complete waste of intelligence, him signing up for the heavenly militia, that’s what I say._

Alright, maybe it wouldn’t go exactly like that. But he could imagine the way Jesus would visibly relax at the sight of him, and the way Aziraphale’s mouth would drop open just as it had when Jesus had preferred Crawly as an infant, and it would make Crawly feel much better, until of course it made everything much worse. 

Joseph’s footsteps were coming up the road, the smell of dead donkey and fresh turned earth on his clothes. In a moment Crawly would have the perfect chance to slip away during the distraction of his arrival, and then it would be time to come up with a plan for how to keep Aziraphale from ruining everything.

With only the weakest shiver of reluctance, Crawly unfurled himself heavily from the darkness of the granary, and slipped his way out of the yard the minute Joseph had passed his hiding place.

...

Crawly had been thinking. And when he wasn’t thinking, he’d been sleeping, curled up in a nice little hole somewhere a bit south-east of Nazareth proper. Between the waking hours thinking and the sleeping hours dreaming, a tiny, wheedling thought had started to burrow and take root into an even more unbearable hope. But it all depended on biding his time appropriately. He even found himself Planning, which was usually even worse.

Finally, he had a few excuses picked out, and the dark little space he’d been curled up in for days became unbearably boring when he was conscious. He emerged sluggishly into a warm, sleepy afternoon, and, knowing trouble was likely to find him, decided to seek it out first. 

He didn’t go to Jesus’ house. Instead, he wound his way through the rocky terrain just outside their usual meeting spot, trying to sniff out any other demons or angels which might be lurking nearby. He could smell Aziraphale all over this place by now if he really tried, little whiffs of him lingering in the breeze, but it seemed to be blowing from the general direction of the house, so that was no real surprise. 

There were other undertones, demonic ones—like the smell of a potter’s kiln or a forge, or a swamp, or a very old chest full of decaying clothes and mothballs. Individual variations. But they were faint. Crawly started to move slower, struggling to follow them, which of course had everything to do with their faintness and nothing to do with his own reluctance.

His path led him near a flock of pigeons whose heads were bobbing along as they strutted round a tree, sticking to the shade or roosting in its branches. Crawly slithered up to them by way of a threateningly rapid wiggle, head raised, intending to set them to flight. His spirits needed a lift, and he wasn’t picky about amusements at this point. 

They burst into startled coos and flapping of wings. All except one, and Crawly would have assumed that one was the demon he was looking for, if it wasn’t for the blast of holiness that hit his face when it beat its wings at him in an ungraceful flurry.

_Aziraphale? _Crawly hissed. 

The pigeon, a white one with a gold-beige ring around its neck, settled back on its feet and fixed him with its best Perfectly Average Pigeon stare before sighing in a most unnatural manner. _Should have flown away with the others. That’s what gave it away, wasn’t it? _

_No, actually. You just reek of holiness._

Aziraphale ruffled his feathers and preened one wing with quick, annoyed jerks of his beak. _And just what are you doing here, Crawly? I was beginning to think you had gone._

_Just on my way out, actually, _Crawly muttered, making to rush past Aziraphale. The only thing that would complicate things more would be for Jesus to show up in the next few seconds. He immediately tried to stop thinking about that, afraid his imagination might somehow call it into reality. He pictured Jesus sitting safely in a synagogue instead. Or taking a siesta. 

The angel had the nerve to flutter over and land right smack-dab in Crawly’s path, even going so far as to spread his wings._ Oh no nono! You are going to tell me what your plan is this time. I know you’re up to something. How many times must I warn you, Crawly? If you’re going to try and corrupt Her son, it simply won’t work! _

_Angel, I’ve got business to deal with, just bugger off. _

_I beg your pardon? _Aziraphale looked as affronted as it is possible for a pigeon to look, and then some. _Well! Here I am trying to do the sporting thing and give you a chance to back out. I should have known it would go completely unappreciated! _

Every direction Crawly tried to slither around him, Aziraphale headed him off with little hops of his bird legs and flutters of his bird wings. Crawly stopped and stuck out his tongue at him, deliberately. 

_Oh, and that isn’t at all childish. Quite mature of you_, Aziraphale said snootily. 

_Better get out of here now if you don’t want any trouble,_ Crawly said, growing desperate. The demonic scents were getting closer. He could feel through his belly the vibrations of a rather large beast approaching, and turned his head just enough to see a nearby prowling lion suddenly change directions and head toward him.

_Come now, Crawly, it isn’t like you to make empty threats._ There was a smug confidence in Aziraphale’s tone that a part of Crawly almost took as fond before realizing how foolish that would be.

_It’s not an empty threat, angel! _Crawly hissed at Aziraphale, a good and proper fang-bearing hiss that set the angelic pigeon nearly tumbling backwards in shock._ If you don’t get out of my way there will be consequences, and trust me, you won’t like them!_

_But—!_

“Well, well, well,” said the approaching lion, whose face looked human when Crawly saw it in his peripheral vision but perfectly feline straight-on. “We get a memo from head office to check on you and find you hanging around with the enemy? I’m excited to hear your explanation, Crawly. It must be one heaven of a story.”

A voice came up from a small cave behind Crawly, a trickling echo like fast waters in a narrow canyon. “Probably too bad to be true,” it said. 

_Guys. Come on_, Crawly said smoothly, circling the holy dove. _You’re talking to the serpent of Eden. Trust me. _He looked at Aziraphale pointedly at that last. 

_Oh please,_ Aziraphale scolded in an undertone. _I really don’t thinkaA_AH!!

Crawly had stretched his jaw wide, and clamped down around the angelic dove before Aziraphale could say anything more. 

It was like trying to swallow a cactus, and not just because of the unpleasant texture of bird-claws and beak scraping against his throat. No, more like a poisonous cactus that was on fire. Crawly had found swallowing literal swords infinitely easier, the last several times he’d done it as a party trick. 

Aziraphale burned, scraped, prickled, caught, _did not want to go down_, and Crawly’s body did not want to accept it either. He could barely even process the shocked look on Valefar’s human face out of the corner of his eye because he was concentrating so hard just on swallowing Aziraphale down far enough that he couldn’t get back out without effort. Muscles contracted along the entire length of him, pushing and pulling the feathery mass further inward. The pain made him gag and shudder in a way which probably no snake in the history of the earth had. And then there were the squirming sensations.

“For Satan’s sake. You didn’t have to go _that_ far.” The river-trickle voice was closer now, and Crawly spared a glance at the woman-shaped demon with long blue-black hair, ashy grey skin and mule’s legs, who’d suddenly appeared on his other side. She looked absolutely disgusted to be out in the sunlight, her shoulders hunched, her tail swishing noisily back and forth. 

“Well, no point bothering with the snake now,” rumbled Valefar. “He’s probably dead meat. Or will be anyway.”

Crawly gave one last massive convulsion of muscles, forcing Aziraphale down close enough to his stomach that he could theoretically gather himself and speak. Still, it took a few moments longer than he wanted to try and affect a casual tone.

_Got some kind of message for me? _The hiss came out choked and scratchy, from trying very hard to neither cough nor puke. The lower half of his body cringed uncontrollably in sympathy with his upper half. _Let’s hear it then._ Satan, he could feel every single one of his scales from the inside out, and they were all threatening mutiny.

“Er, well.” Valefar and the other one—Crawly had momentarily lost her name, especially with his every molecule running a fever—exchanged an unsteady glance. “Head Office just wanted to see how the tempting of the Messiah’s going. Hadn’t heard anything for a while.”

“Yeah. They were starting to get a little worried. I’ll put in a notice that they’ll be needing a replacement,” muttered the satyr. “Was awful knowing you.”

_Hahah-h-ha, heh, pleassse,_ Crawly said, forcing his body to start squirming, slowly, through the gap between the other two demons. Not too fast, lest he give the impression of really wanting to get away somewhere so he could hack up this holy ball of feathers immediately and hope it wasn’t too late. _As if this could kill me so easily! This stupid bird was just getting on my last nerve. Don’t tell me you’ve never eaten an angel before? Got a nice spicy kick. A real delicacy._

“You mean to tell me you’ve done this before?” Valefar asked, agape, which looked funny enough on his lion’s face when Crawly glanced back at him that he would have laughed if his throat didn’t hurt so much. Aziraphale’s body shifted inside his throat, changing dimensions, and for a moment his mind supplied the grisly image of his own physical corporation bursting open at the seams when the angel switched back to human size. Time was ticking.

_Yup. Surprised it’s taken you guys so long. Now if you’ll excuse me I have some digesting and tempting to do._

“Isn’t that almost like cannibalism?” the satyr wondered aloud. “I mean, angels and demons….”

“Nah. Otherwise holy stuff wouldn’t be poisonous to us, right? Humans aren’t poisonous to humans.”

“What if it’s like mad cow disease?”

“Oh shut up, it’s nothing like that. What, do you live under a rock?”

“Of course I do, that’s the whole point! I make my home in caves and cliffs and strangle and pervert foolish men!”

Crawly would have given one last witty remark, but not only was he running low on ideas, but Aziraphale had started moving again, climbing his way back up Crawly’s throat with not two but _four _clawed feet. It was all he could do not to let out a string of unintelligible noises, snakelike and non.

_See you later_, was all he managed to hiss out before slithering desperately back toward town.

He hoped to make it far enough that he couldn’t smell the other demons anymore, but no such luck. His only comfort was that they were blocked from the other demons’ lines of sight by a rather wizened pear tree and some other tall scrub brush. But that fact barely registered because at that moment, a sharp, pinching pain cut through his esophagus, and his whole body tried to turn itself inside out in a desperate attempt to rid itself of Aziraphale. Out of his mouth came a bedraggled white squirrel, its face stained an oily black with Crawly’s blood.

Crawly hacked and spat, or tried to, but it was only an ineffectual strangled hiss, a few flecks of the dark liquid dripping onto the ground.

Aziraphale sneezed and sprayed more drops of it all over both of them, every bit of fur on his squirrely body standing on end. _How d—what on eart—Crawly I can’t believe you-you really—what in heaven’s name—!? _

Crawly wanted desperately to cough, but a snake’s physiology didn’t lend itself well to that. The world, which had begun to spin the moment before he’d finally spat out the angel, slowly righted itself, and he saw the tail end of Aziraphale’s transformation back into his human form, towering over him, mouth and chin still stained dark

The angel wiped at his mouth with one hand and stared at his filthy fingers in horror. “Absolutely vile,” the angel whispered faintly before miracling himself clean with a shudder.

Crawly replied with a wordless creak, which had meant to be the words, _Lucky you didn’t poison yourself, angel._

“I am never, _ever _for the_ rest of the eternities _allowing myself to be in any physical form smaller than yours!” The angel’s mouth and eyes pinched with horror, his fists unclenching only long enough to brush frantically over his tunic-clad self as if to check everything was still intact. “That was _completely_ uncalled for and—and oh I should have _known_ it would come to this!”

“T’whuh?” Crawly croaked, and immediately regretted it. Talking hurt. Swallowing, bless his human habits, _hurt_. Everything did. He’d ended up on hands and knees when his snake form receded, and after a few real hacking coughs that were more painful than satisfying, he gingerly pushed himself up into a stand. The pain began to leak away from everywhere except his digestive tract. He wouldn’t be able to miracle away _that_ holy burn.

“To… to blows, after all!” Aziraphale sputtered, shaking visibly. “I thought we—I—this—so _foolish_—” His face twisted in pained disgust. “You’ve no idea how… how unbelievably bad it feels to be trapped in _someone’s_ throat! Completely disgusting and awful! How _dare _you! You’re lucky I didn’t kill you trying to get out. And the_ taste!_ Oh, I need a drink,” the angel groaned, tongue working inside his mouth as if he could still taste the phantom bitterness of demon’s blood.

“Bit me.”

“Well of course I did!” Aziraphale snapped. “How else was I supposed to—”

“Should’ejus’ let ‘em kill you?” Crawly mumbled.

“What?” Aziraphale’s anger fell away for another brief moment before he caught himself. “Oh, I’m not falling for that! You want me to believe you did this as a favor to me?” He began pacing restlessly, never coming closer to Crawly but never much further away either, eyes sharp upon him, but also darting, turned inward with a coldness that made Crawly’s skin, well… crawl a little. “Oh-hoh no, no, I see through your wiles this time. You would have me think you let me escape, but really,_ I _thwarted you! Evil _cannot _consume good—not even in a literal physical sense.” He shuddered, but forced a smile, a weakly righteous smile.

Crawly sighed—barely a sigh, more just a breath, and still it needled his throat. He settled for giving Aziraphale a look that he hoped would convey his utter disgust and disbelief at the angel’s obtuse viewpoint of the whole situation. Moving his tongue made it feel like someone had tried to yank it out. Same with his teeth.

Aziraphale’s smug look wavered. He stopped pacing. His forehead creased, and he looked like Aziraphale again. “So you admit it?” 

“Y’welcome,” Crawly croaked, eyes narrowed in a perpetual wince. He rubbed at his throat as if that would do anything to help, but it actually almost felt like the burn was still spreading.

“Crawly, really, be serious,” Aziraphale scolded, but there was no bite to it. He was beginning to look shaken… drained. He took a step backward. “And please, clean yourself up. You look awful.”

Crawly didn’t clean himself up. He wiped his mouth with one hand and rubbed the sticky blood between his fingers.

“I’m not going to do it for you,” Aziraphale warned, in a grossly parental tone.

“Know them?” Crawly grunted, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder.

“Who? The demons?” Aziraphale rubbed his hands together distractedly. “I don’t exactly go around consorting with—well….”

“Valefar. Onoskelis, I think. Loose cannon, her. Likes killing. Valefar c’mmands ten legions. Th’send him, big trouble.”

“They wouldn’t.”

Crawly raised an eyebrow.

“Perhaps they would,” Aziraphale admitted. “But… but so would you.”

Crawly raised the other one.

“No? You just tried to eat me, for heaven’s sake.”

Crawly shrugged. He was beginning to feel rather nauseous.

“Well?” Aziraphale pressed, and muttered to himself: “By all rights I shouldn’t even be speaking to you. But after what just happened, the least you can do is give me an explanation.”

Crawly pointed to his throat.

“This isn’t me being naïve, you understand. I’m trying to make sense of you. We parted on good terms, I thought, in Egypt. So you can hardly blame me for confronting you.” Aziraphale sounded equal parts defensive and crestfallen. “I thought we agreed that it would be safer for you to avoid the boy.”

“Tried,” Crawly grunted.

“Tried? I’m afraid I’m rather skeptical… it seems you’ve been seeking him out, instead.” Aziraphale gathered himself into a more dignified, benevolent posture. “But if you have any more to say, please do share it.”

_Oh, sure, tell the whole story with a shredded throat_. Talk about salt in the wound, but no doubt the angel thought it was a fitting punishment. Maybe Aziraphale was, after all, of the same sadistic ilk as some angels Crawly still remembered none too fondly. Crawly rolled his eyes and turned to walk away, resisting the urge to swallow again.

“Crawly? Where are you going?”

“’ll write you,” Crawly croaked, waving a hand over his shoulder. Writing would be much easier than trying to have a full-length conversation about it, but even as he walked away he could predict about a 50/50 chance that such a letter would actually get written, much less delivered. He suddenly felt very tired.

“You’ll what? Now listen, you’re being quite unfair, don’t you think? Asking nicely for help after an apology can go a long way. I didn’t _want _to hurt you, Crawly, but when you strike first I really haven’t much choice in the matter.”

Crawly kept walking, turned off from the whole snake form for the time being. And he hadn’t thought he had so much attachment to Jesus’ nickname for him already, but now that it was there in the back of his mind, hearing _Crawly_ carried a certain… mood. He turned Crowley over in his mind again, and decided to try it on.

A frustrated huff and soft snap of fingers came from behind him and Crowley realized the blood had vanished from his face, clothes, and fingers. But the pain and nausea hadn’t. He kept walking without looking back.

“Crawly, I—you’re not saying you did that to_ protect_ me? Could you please stop and talk to me for just a moment? I’m going to have to follow you if you go back to their house!”

“Voice down,” Crowley reminded him hoarsely, glancing around for demonic observers. But their scent had lessened steadily since Crowley had left them behind, and he was reasonably sure they had already gone back to tell head office of his reckless attack on the forces of heaven.

“Oh, right,” said Aziraphale in a hushed, nervous laugh. “I think they’ve left, though.” He scurried to catch up to Crowley. “Listen, it was all just a ruse, wasn’t it?”

That stopped Crowley, and he squinted at the angel.

“Oh, _alright_,” Aziraphale sighed with a guilty look, and passed a hand carefully through the air in front of Crowley’s chest and throat.

The worst of the burning was erased like marks on a chalkboard, leaving only a thin residue and the scratchy soreness of the physical damage it had left behind. Still cactus prickles, but no longer on fire or poisoned. It was a huge relief, and Crowley had to really concentrate on the cold reality of things to maintain a properly sullen look.

“Better?” Aziraphale prompted.

“Yeh,” Crowley grunted, and cleared his throat by impulse, but it stayed a bit scratchy-sounding. “What do you want me to say?”

“Well, if that _was_ some kind of horrible prank, I would like an apology, but—”

“Demons don’t apologize,” Crowley muttered.

“Look.” Aziraphale frowned. “You could have at least warned—well—” His voice dropped to a self-conscious mumble. “I suppose you did warn me… sort of.” His frown deepened in thought and he sighed, seeming distracted even as he led the way back toward town. “What would the other demons have done, if you hadn’t… erm… ‘eaten’ me?”

Crowley made a face. “Probably discorporated us both, knowing Onoskelis and her _legions of the damned_. Slowly.”

The angel’s brow furrowed in an almost pleading glance over at him. “I wish I were certain I haven’t underestimated you.”

“Underestimated? Underestimated what? What about me?”

“Your wickedness. Your cleverness. Your ability to present lies as truth.”

“Ehh, probably have,” Crowley growled. He still felt nauseous. Guess it wasn’t all from the pain, then—holy residue in the stomach of a demon was bound to cause an upset.

“That is how the adversary works, isn’t it? Lulling good people into a false sense of security through harmless little moments, minuscule choices which seem inconsequential. Preying on their better natures.”

“Rescuing them from demons.” Maybe next time he _would _just let them have their fun and save himself from the lecture.

“For all I know, that entire encounter could have been staged to get me on your side,” Aziraphale said quietly.

Crowley put on his best sarcastic tone and swung his arms, not sure what to do with them. “Oh yeah, great friends, those two and me, we go way back. Murder buddies. Seduction buddies.”

Aziraphale didn’t seem to catch the point of it, judging by the way he wrinkled his nose. “Seduction?”

“Kff. You’re so gullible, angel.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about!” Aziraphale looked distressed. “A demon is supposed to take advantage of the pure in heart… try to win their trust. Appeal to their compassion in order to trap them. I trusted you to stay out of this and here you are again, and I’m not sure I can take you at your word any longer.”

“What am I supposed to do, go on strike? Form a union?” Crowley snarled resentfully. “A demon can’t exactly say no to orders from Sa—” Crowley stopped himself, feeling a bit paranoid about drawing attention. “From... you know… the boss.”

“Oh dear. You’re here on assignment?”

“Special assignment.”

Aziraphale stopped again, glancing downward as if he’d stepped in dung, and Crowley stopped with him. “From… _him?_ Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Wish I was,” Crowley mumbled.

“They finally found out?”

“Yup,” popped Crowley miserably.

“What do they want you to do?”

Crowley tossed his head to get the angel walking with him again—the more distance they put between themselves and the scent of the other demons, the better. “I told him I was going to try and influence the child a bit, scope him out for weaknesses, that sort of thing. It’s just reconnaissance right now. Hopefully a very long reconnaissance.”

“Can’t you… you know, ask someone else to do it instead?” Aziraphale half-whispered.

“Right… could hand the job over to a more bloodthirsty demon, let them destroy the boy,” Crowley considered aloud. “Or have old lion’s mane back there just kidnap him and raise him in hell, or close enough. He’s a demon of thievery you know, probably has a trick or two up his sleeves when it comes to pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes. Might even get past an angel.”

“The Almighty would never allow such a thing,” Aziraphale said, but he sounded nervous.

“The Almighty allows an awful lot of things They said weren’t allowed. Apples, floods, infanticide….”

“I—She would send more angels to protect him, surely. Or give him powers to defend himself!”

“Alright then,” Crowley said lightly. “Make your job harder for yourself if you like. Go along with the time-honored heavenly tradition of endangering young humans for the greater good. I’ll turn in my resignation tonight. You’re obviously much better at my job than I am.”

“O-on second thought I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” The words rushed from the angel’s mouth, and to compensate Aziraphale straightened his tunic and nodded smartly to himself. “But I won’t allow you to contact him again, especially not unsupervised. Consider this an official warning.”

Crowley tilted his head back in a long dramatic sigh, now that he could without gagging. “So smiting back on the table, huh?”

“Oh, not that again. I don’t see why I should have to smite you. Surely we can agree that we’d _both_ like to avoid that.”

“But if I do talk to him again? What will you do?”

“You won’t. I won’t allow it.”

“Going to spend every hour of every day and night at his side? I wonder what his parents will think of that.”

“I’ll find a way to protect him.” Aziraphale’s stubborn, self-assured smile would have been cute if it weren’t so annoying. “And if you make it necessary, I’ll ask for backup.”

An idea struck Crowley, and he slapped on a thoughtful frown instead of the grin that would have given his motives away. “Weeeell… wouldn’t it be easier to keep an eye on _me?_”

“Possibly.” Aziraphale glanced over at him suspiciously. “Provided Down Below doesn’t send other demons up to replace you once they realize I’m… thwarting you.”

“Oh, they won’t.” Crowley waved a hand, regaining a bit of his usual swagger. “I’ll keep sending them reports on what I’m doing—which will be nothing, but they don’t have to know that. All of this is making me think I’ve been working a bit too hard lately. Aren’t you living in Sepphoris? What if I were to get a room over there, somewhere close enough that you could keep tabs, send a good report upstairs?”

“Really?” Aziraphale nearly smiled before he caught himself. “Why?”

Crowley pursed his lips and shrugged. “You get to do your job, I get to kick back and relax for a few more years, rake in the commendations…what’s there to lose? Between you and me, Nazareth isn’t the most exciting place, and a real bed starts to sound superb after enough nights sleeping in literal snake-holes. Besides, I think once head office hears from the others I swallowed an angel without discorporating or dissolving into smoke on the spot, they’ll have no reason to doubt my reports.”

“You don’t think they’ll check that I’ve actually been discorporated?”

“Nah.” Crowley made a face. “Don’t think the other demons recognized you. For all they know there’s a whole host of angels guarding the little godspawn.”

“You know, I keep forgetting you need to sleep.” Aziraphale sounded almost contrite. “I suppose a hole in the ground isn’t the most comfortable place to do such a thing is it?”

“Don’t really need to, just like to. You should try it sometime—anyway. Can’t get a decent drink in Nazareth either,” Crowley tutted. “But then, maybe Sepphoris is just as bad?”

“Oh, no, there’s actually a few _very_ nice places for food and drink that I’ve discovered over the last few years.” True to form, Aziraphale lit up. “I should—well, if this really isn’t a trap—”

“Should what?” Crowley was barely holding back a grin of triumph now.

“Well, I _could_ show you, if you really are going to keep your distance from Jesus from now on. And there’s bound to be plenty of other people to tempt there, if you need more to fill your reports with….”

“Demon’s honor. I’ll stay out of Nazareth—no reason to come back really—just so long as you help me get a room in Sepphoris. I hear you’re good at that sort of thing.”

“I suppose I have gotten rather good at it,” Aziraphale said with an adorably impish smile which suddenly vanished. “Is there such a thing?”

“Such a thing as what?”

“A demon’s honor.”

Crowley gave an uncertain noise.

“Well, it’s the thought that counts, I suppose. But I’m warning you, you crafty devil, I _will _take drastic measures if I see you near the child again!”

“Right, right.” Crowley nodded along, changing direction, away from Nazareth. “To Sepphoris, then?”

“Oh! Yes…I suppose there is no time like the present to get this squared away. There’s a new building going up by a lovely bathhouse, and it’s near the top of the hill so the view at sunset is quite spectacular, but it can get rather warm toward the end of the day.”

“Warm is fine,” said Crowley, and he let Aziraphale ramble on about the other features of buildings he’d helped fund the construction of, including the artistic mosaics which decorated many of them. The worst of the tension had finally passed, and he allowed himself to relax.

They left Nazareth behind. The edges of his thoughts were slowly sanded down by future plans of how to contact Jesus without the angel noticing. He’d worked from a distance before, and in some ways it was easier. But his real work this time wouldn’t be the same old sort of tempting. This was going to be something else entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Valefar and Onoskelis are a couple of demons specific to Judaism, though I added the bit about the face looking human only in peripheral vision (the wikipedia article just said he is a lion-faced demon) as well as Onoskelis' description apart from the mule's legs.  
2\. Got rid of all the extra ssss's because... distracting. Ngk.


	8. Chapter 8

It was a peculiar building, sprawling and many-chambered, near the bustling edge of Sepphoris, surrounded by new buildings and buildings-in-progress. Aziraphale and Crowley sat on cushions in the courtyard at the center among other classy-looking people, all facing the slightly raised stone platform where the presentation had already been going on for well over an hour.

Crowley had only agreed to come because there had been something on the invitation about lumber, and he supposed he might meet people in construction here. This, he reasoned with himself, would aid in his rather masterful plan of getting the city planning officials to adopt a law that required all Hebrew children (including Jesus) of men working on city building projects (like Joseph) to enroll in a special apprenticeship program in Sepphoris, designed to make good servants of the Roman empire out of said children….

He hadn’t expected to be so interested in the presentation itself.

Just as he was thinking this, Aziraphale shifted and sighed next to him. “We _must_ be getting close to the end.”

“You’re bored?” Crowley stared at him in disbelief. They were far enough toward the back that they could whisper a little without being noticed by the presenter. “This whole thing was your idea.” Aziraphale might have phrased it as a social invitation, but Crowley knew it was just an excuse to keep him under supervision and out of trouble.

“Well, I had rather hoped that there would be…you know, samples.”

“There have been!” Crowley nodded toward the front, where the presenter’s aide was collecting the little napkin-wrapped figs both edible and non, which had been passed out to be looked at. The non-edible ones had either been caprifigs or full of tiny dead wasps at varying stages of development. “Very good visuals, actually. I’m never eating a fig again.”

“Oh please,” Aziraphale scoffed. “He said the common fig rarely ever has wasps inside it. They disappear after they pollinate.”

“Disappear. Right… I’m not sure I trust that. Why would the common fig be so much different from the sycomore fig?”

“Oh, I wish they’d let us taste the good ones they passed out,” Aziraphale muttered mournfully. “Sycomore figs are so much sweeter and juicier and… and the _smell_… it’s all so much more heavenly than the common ones. Cruel of them to let us smell and not taste.”

“Not worth it.” Crowley shook his head. “Anyway, you got your free wine.” He took a sip out of his own cup with a pointed look over the rim.

“It’s nothing special,” Aziraphale pouted. “It’s not even fig wine.”

“And good thing too, or I’d be spitting it out.”

“Really! I didn’t expect a demon to be so squeamish.”

“Oh,” Crowley said breezily, “And I suppose it’s natural for angels to have no issue picking the young of smaller, more insignificant life forms from their teeth, while they’re possibly still half-alive and writhing.”

“Well. There’s really no need to be so judgmental and self-righteous.” Aziraphale frowned, not seeming at all aware of how ironic it was to accuse a demon of such a thing. “They’re only insects, after all. Barely more advanced in thought or feeling than the fig itself. I’m sure there are minuscule insects in any of the fruit you consume when you get right down to it. Apples, for instance… worms and so forth.”

“I won’t eat, then.” Crowley set down his cup and folded his arms loosely.

“But you can’t just—well alright, yes, you could, but what would be the point? When you sleep with your mouth open, or walk on the ground, you probably destroy hundreds by accident. It’s fruitless to feel guilty about it.”

“_Fruit_less?” Crowley groaned.

“Oh hush. Pun not intended. Anyway, the figs that are good to eat don’t have any wasps in them.”

“That we can see.” Crowley kept half an ear attuned to the speaker up front, who was explaining in more detail about how to use special tools to gash the sycomore fruits and thus ripen them faster and without any visible wasp infestation. “He just said that it’s assumed the wasps escape from the figs through the gash. But they wouldn’t be mature yet, I would think, if the fruit ripens in only a few days after gashing. So they must still be inside, but too small to see at that point.”

“You’re over-thinking this, my dear… rival,” Aziraphale said. “If they’re too small to see, then what’s the harm?”

Crowley shook his head in amazement. Aziraphale had been doing this, lately, as if carrying on their little marriage charade. It was practical, yes, to let people assume what they would when they saw two presumable humans of similar unusual paleness, one presumably male and the other presumably female, in close proximity to one another. Bickering. The bickering also did it.

When Crowley just took another sip and went on taking mental notes about fig husbandry, Aziraphale made an odd noise as if he’d just bit down on something wonderful, despite the figless afternoon and the mediocre wine. “You know, Crawly, I’ve noticed you seem generally interested in plants. _You_ should grow a sycomore fig!”

Crowley raised both eyebrows, not looking at Aziraphale, focused instead on the odd knives the presenter was showing off as he demonstrated the gashing technique. “If I did, it would bear the most luscious, juiciest, sweetest, best-smelling figs in the world.”

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale gushed, leaning forward on his cushion. “And—”

“And I would leave them all for the wasps and the birds,” said Crowley, and turned his face back toward Aziraphale with a snake’s grin. “Not a single one edible to humans. Or angels.”

“Oh Crawly, that’s ridiculous! How would you ever know they were the sweetest if you never ate one yourself? Or let me or anyone else taste one?”

“Hrm. Or… or,” Crowley tilted his head, made a show of reconsidering, “I suppose I could gash them and sell them edible and at high price, mess up the market, add even more chaos to the world.”

“That’s not messing up the market, that’s simply participating. Besides, what would you do with all the money? Probably give it away to those in need.”

A choked noise came from Crowley’s throat. “Wgh..fgfn—when have I ever—I haven’t—”

“I seem to remember a certain family of refugees in Egypt, for whom you arranged lodgings free of charge?” Aziraphale’s innocent smirk—which ought to be an oxymoron, but somehow wasn’t—made Crowley’s noises of resistance turn even less word-like than before.

“Gkkahhhngel, shhhghff!! It wasn’t what it looked li—”

“Oh? Is that a confession?”

Crowley nearly swallowed his tongue. “No. Look, I’m—” He did a mental double-take. “Wait. You’re saying you trust me?” He shook himself. “Obviously not true or you wouldn’t have dragged me over here and told me not to talk to… him.”

Aziraphale sighed, smugness melting halfway. “There’s no need for hard feelings. If things weren’t so high-stakes at the moment… I wouldn’t be nearly so concerned. You said yourself you have an assignment, and I have mine, and… oh never mind. Obviously I’m wrong and you’re secretly a greedy money-hoarding sort of demon who laughs when starving children in the street weep and clutch at your ankles.”

“Oh sh… shut up!” Crowley stammered.

Aziraphale smiled, and what was he supposed to say in rebuttal to _that?_

Finally, he gave a low mutter. “Well. Even if I sold the figs, you still wouldn’t get one.”

“How petty. A mere human’s judgment would hardly be as satisfying as an angel’s, I should think, regarding the quality of the fruit. I was in Eden, you know, and there were plenty of fruit trees that were not at all forbidden to either humans or angels.”

“Growing it would take too much time anyway… sycomore trees take at least a few years to grow before fruiting.”

“Well… we have time, don’t we?” Aziraphale’s tone was light as a feather. “That is one thing we have in abundance.”

Crowley stared at him a moment too long before remembering to roll his eyes. It took him several more seconds after that to process the implications in that simple statement; Aziraphale really seemed to be much more comfortable with the current arrangement than Crowley had dared believe. Either that or all of this was some kind of thickly veiled threat.

“You really want fruit from a demon-grown sycomore fig?” Crowley chuckled in disbelief, even as a fly suddenly pinged off his cheekbone, the whine of its wings turning into words: _report overdue._

Close as they were to aid their whispering, Aziraphale didn’t seem to hear the fly or notice, but Crowley’s muscles tensed, an unseen, inner coiling in defense. He waved the fly away.

“Well, I wouldn’t eat it if it was corrupted somehow, but if it were, it would hardly be delicious to me.”

“Maybe not evil,” Crowley admitted, “but still full of wasps.”

“_Unless_ of course someone snuck in and gashed the fruit while you weren’t looking.” Aziraphale’s mouth quirked playfully.

“I would hire guards. Put demonic protections around it.”

Aziraphale pouted. He actually pouted, pursing his lips and letting his eyebrows slant up, and it was all nearly comedic except that Crowley caught himself feeling _guilty_ of all things.

“You would harm humans just to keep _me_ from tasting the most delicious fruit in the world?”

“Wasps,” Crowley reiterated, folding his arms. “Loads and loads of wasps. Wasp heaven.”

“Oh, fine,” Aziraphale snapped. “I suppose it _would_ take too much time, as you say, and you really don’t have a place to plant it.”

“No place to plant it?” Crowley made a broad gesture. “The whole world is my backyard.”

“Really, forget about it… you obviously don’t actually care, and I don’t want to set myself up to be tempted by the serpent of Eden anyway.”

“What?” Crowley choked, getting whiplash from how quickly Aziraphale’s mind had changed. “Angel, I am definitely growing the biggest, most beautiful sycomore fig tree in Israel.”

“For the wasps, of course,” Aziraphale sighed with half a glare.

“Of course,” Crowley said, grinning again. “Just some general chaos-creating as well. Don’t take it so personally. But it would be useful to have some leverage on an angel once in a while… a little gash, a few days’ wait… perfect angel bait.”

“Really. I’m not going to do anything untoward simply for a piece of fruit, no matter how good it smells. I’ve learned that lesson.”

“We’ll see about that,” Crowley muttered, grin turning lazy. Up front, the presenter’s aides were setting up a display of seedlings for sale, and Crowley would be damned if he left this place without one. Well, he would be damned if he didn’t, too, but such was every choice in his life.

The talk was done in about ten more minutes, a quick wrap-up reiterating care practices in the sycamore tree’s early life. Crowley stood before the presenter had even finished saying “And the young trees you see up here are for sale,” and moved purposefully through the crowds.

The seedlings were planted in unfinished clay pots, and most of them were at least a foot tall and rather leggy, Crowley thought. Aziraphale came up behind him while he was examining the glossy leaves of one of them, and said nothing while Crowley deliberated.

After a good five minutes of running his finger and thumb over the leaves and whip-thin “trunks” of each one, Crowley abruptly picked up one of the pots and held it out to Aziraphale, whose eyes widened as if he were being offered an infant all over again.

“But I thought you were going to—”

“Just hold it for me while I pay the man,” said Crowley.

“Oh,” said Aziraphale, and he took the plant carefully in both hands.

“Always trust a woman’s intuition,” said the cheerful man in charge of sales. “The key to a happy marriage, I’ve found.”

“Good advice,” Crowley laughed, glancing over his shoulder to see a unique expression on Aziraphale’s face, as if he’d just inhaled a bug and was trying very hard not to cough.

Once the money had changed hands, Crowley took the plant back from the angel and made for the street.

“And just where are you going to plant it?” Aziraphale demanded, his short, purposeful strides easily keeping up with Crowley’s long, lazily swaying ones.

“Well, it needs somewhere reasonably close to—”

Another fly bumped up against Crowley’s face, and another. Prickles of apprehension went down Crowley’s spine, as if his wings were itching to burst free.

“Hm?” Aziraphale stopped and looked back, and only then did Crowley realize he’d stopped walking. “What’s wrong?”

“Whuh? Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. Just thinking. Close to water, yeah. That’s where it needs. What it—where it needs to be uh—planted.”

Aziraphale frowned reluctantly. “Could be a bit of a walk.”

“Well, doesn’t have to be_ too_ close to water. The roots go deep once they start growing, the man said.”

“You really were paying attention the entire time, weren’t you?” Aziraphale sounded impressed, but more than that, he sounded… no, it was ridiculous. The angel had no reason to find his interest in plants endearing. Probably was meant in jest. A mocking sort of fondness. Look at the silly serpent of Eden, so keen on using fruit as temptation once more. How cute.

Crowley squeezed through the crowded doorway and threw a smirk over his shoulder once he and the angel were free of the worst of it. “And I thought_ I _was a slacker.”

“Good thing, for me,” Aziraphale shot back cheerily. “And for you, I suppose. Though I’m sure you’re underestimating my commitment to my mission. Just because I know how to enjoy myself doesn’t mean—”

This time the fly buzzed right into his ear, so loudly that Crowley couldn’t help a yelp. “GRgh!” Swatting at it did no good, the foul thing burrowing out of reach to deliver its message. The motion only succeeded in nearly tipping the seedling out of Crowley’s arms.

_Crawly,_ it buzzed deafeningly, _we received word you discorporated an angel at great risk. We are pleazzed to hear you survived this, but this only makes your recent silence more unacceptable. _

“—ley? Crawly, what on earth is the matter?”

Aziraphale’s hands were steadying the pot from the other side, his face uncomfortably close. Crowley pulled back just a little.

“Hold it again just for a minute, angel, there’s something I forgot to—I’ll be right back—”

“What? But—”

Crowley didn’t hear the rest; he was off, lurching back through the crowds and squeezing around a corner where he could hunch his shoulders and summon a small scrap of parchment, on which he scribbled a burning note with his finger: _BUSY tempting, report coming as soon as I’m out of public view!_ He only just stopped himself from adding a “stop with the bloody memos,” figuring that might be pushing his luck.

He sent the note back to hell by crumpling it into nothing in his hand, shook his head vigorously until the fly finally left his ear, and at last he hurried back out into the street.

“What was that all about?” Aziraphale’s frown had turned suspicious.

“Forgot to ask a question—about… pest control,” Crowley said, grimacing and waving both hands dismissively before reaching for the pot. The urge to shudder lingered in his shoulders.“Shouldn’t have bothered; they’re hardy types, typical care for diseases and leaf spots. Anyway! On to the planting.”

“But you were hitting yourself… it looked like it hurt.”

“Just comedic effect,” Crowley scoffed. “Anyway, I barely felt it. Don’t you ever realize you forgot something and just go—d’AH!?” Crowley shifted the pot into one arm and lightly smacked his forehead with the heel of his other palm to demonstrate.

“Not exactly, but something like that,” Aziraphale admitted. “Though I rarely forget truly important things.”

“Anyway, let’s get this done quickly. I want to get back home and take a nap.” Crowley knew that a nap was not likely to be on the agenda, the way hell was literally pestering him today, but he could still dream (figuratively).

“What exactly do you _do _while you’re sleeping?” asked Aziraphale, as they shifted onto the main road out of town.

“What do you mean, what do I do? I sleep.”

“But… well I’m afraid I don’t really see the appeal, if it’s not a physical need. Just lying there, for hours, without even thinking?”

“Exactly.” Crowley stretched his neck and rolled his head with eyes half-closed against the late morning sun, luxuriating in the thought of it. “It’s glorious.” Well, he tried to luxuriate. But the thought of demonic watchers or visitors or—hell forbid—_supervisors_ showing up still had his shoulder-blades itching. He had to fight the urge not to glance behind him every five seconds, and told himself to trust his nose; he didn’t smell anyone unearthly approaching… yet.

“Do you at least dream?”

Crowley wrinkled his nose. “Try not to. Dreaming is overrated, anyway.”

“Well, that’s the only part of sleeping I’ve actually been curious about,” Aziraphale mused. “I wonder if our kind even _can_ dream. Perhaps it’s only a human thing.”

_Our kind?_ Crowley thought. “’snot. Dogs dream. Seen ‘em do it.”

“Really?” Aziraphale’s eyebrows climbed toward his pale turban. Such a shame, Crowley thought, for him to cover up his curls like that. “What on earth would a dog have to dream about?”

“Barking… running… eating. You know… dog things. They bark in their sleep, and sometimes their legs start going like—” Crowley again tried to shift his grip on the plant to demonstrate, but it was too awkward with just one arm, so he shrugged and gave up. “Don’t see why I couldn’t dream, if I wanted to.” In fact Crowley knew he could, but his few experiences with it had been nothing like he’d hoped. Nothing he wanted to discuss with the angel, anyway. Especially if hell was listening.

Crowley stopped abruptly, only a few meters outside the city.

“Crawly? Did you forget something else?” Aziraphale tilted his head and Crowley nearly growled at the shameless puppy-like quality of it all.

“_No._ This is it.”

“What is… what?” Aziraphale looked around himself as if the answer lay on the ground somewhere.

“The place where I’m planting my tree.” Crowley paced off the road a ways into the scrubby, rocky wayside, disturbing a sunbathing snake which whispered out of sight.

“Here? Why here? It hardly seems ideal.” Aziraphale walked reluctantly after him among the thorns and jagged stones.

“To prove a point.”

“Oh Crawly, you can’t. It’ll kill the poor thing!”

“No it won’t.” Crowley grinned and set the pot down against a nearby rock before miracle-ing himself a shovel. “I won’t let it. Hardy type, anyway.”

“At least put it closer to where the rain naturally pools in the wetter months. Or a bit further from the road!”

“Nope. Everyone who passes this way is going to see it covered with figs one day and know they can’t eat a single one of them. Or if they don’t know, they’ll soon find out,” Crowley muttered in amusement, digging up the soil with more than a little demonic influence on the shovel’s ability to cut through the hard, stony ground. It would have taken a human nearly twenty minutes or more to soften up the spot of earth Crowley had chosen, but he didn’t know that, and so it yielded.

Before long, he was kneeling, carefully tipping the pot and holding the tree by the base of the trunk as he separated the roots and soil from their container. Down in the hole they went, and Crowley patted the soil back in around it, nearly yelping when a small stream of water began to flow gently into the earth near his hands.

“What are you—angel—ngk—t-trying to—well of course it’s not _holy_ water—”

“Oh of course not!” Aziraphale tutted and tipped the clay vessel in his hands back upright. “Just regular water. Though I would like to bless the tree, if you’d let me.”

“Bless it?” Crowley frowned, tucking his stray locks away from his face as he stood back to look over his handiwork. “To make it yours, you mean?”

“No, no, it’s your tree,” Aziraphale said. “I just worry about it, out here in the open. It’s still so young….”

“You really want those figs, don’t you?” Crowley laughed, and before Aziraphale turned away, he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of the angel rolling his eyes. The warm breeze outside the city picked up, making the half-dozen leaves of the seedling dance spastically.

“I simply feel a small fraction of responsibility toward it, since it _was_ my idea.”

Crowley stood there for a moment, the wind beating the hem of his clothing around his calves, mussing his hair… and it did feel rather unceremonious to simply walk away. But he hardly had a choice—he could smell the changes on the wind that meant hell was about to contact him again, and he didn’t want Aziraphale around when it happened.

“Do what you want,” Crowley said lightly. “I’m sure I’ll have plenty of opportunity to reverse your influence. Later, angel.”

“What? Oh, yes, you too.” Aziraphale’s voice was soft and he stared through Crowley as if he’d said something peculiar and the angel was still trying to work out what it meant.

Crowley let his fingers brush the very top of the seedling as he turned away and headed back up the hill.

…

“Angel, this _really _is too much. I’ve told you, I’m just going to take a nap! I even already said goodbye and now you’ve followed me all this way?”

The other women in the boarding house were definitely listening—they were always listening—but Crowley didn’t pay that too much mind as he stepped inside the entrance. They would think what everyone else who saw them together thought, probably. They should have seen the way Aziraphale rushed up the hill to catch up to him.

“I simply want to make sure you’re not sneaking off to violate our arrangement,” Aziraphale said in a light, choppy mutter.

“I’ve been here weeks, and I haven’t left! If anything I’m starting to worry that _you’re _getting a little too lax about your actual job.”

“Don’t try to distract me.”

“I’m going to have some time alone,” Crowley said pointedly, amazed that Aziraphale didn’t seem to notice the demonic scent that was getting stronger every moment. Or perhaps he did notice it, and that was _why_ he was heading for Crowley’s bedroom. Crowley lurched after him but casual-like—wouldn’t do to_ look_ like he was lurching. “I’ll see you later! Look, you walked me here, I’m safely back where I’m supposed to be—now I’m going to go sleep and be boring. Which I can’t easily do with you around, so—_good afternoon!”_

“Alright, yes, I understand,” Aziraphale sighed and—oh thank Satan—stopped his advance. “I do actually have an appointment to be at, so… I’ll come back to check in after an hour or so.”

“Right. Bye.”

An hour or so? The angel really wasn’t letting up.

Crowley stood there for longer than was strictly necessary, even making eye contact with one of the women passing through the common room as she carried a basket of laundry. She gave a meaningful look between him and the door, paused in her tracks, and said, “Your husband is very attentive.”

“Isn’t he?” Crowley said, too sweetly, and turned toward his bedroom door with a pit in his stomach. “Lucky me,” he muttered, before turning the handle.

A beautiful woman lay stretched on his bed as if posing for a painter, and she wasn’t one of the women who lived here. Indeed she wasn’t even a woman, really, but she looked like one, her hair dark and lustrous as it pooled beneath her, her skin olive and smooth, dressed in sky-blue and scarlet. The only giveaway to a mortal would have been the crown tied to the sash at her waist, but Crowley didn’t need that hint. He knew what all the Dukes of Hell smelled like.

“Gremory!” Crowley gave as enthusiastic a greeting as he dared, given how easily things were overheard in this house. He spread his arms and made as if he was going to come join her in an embrace, but she sat up with a repulsed look, and Crowley, grinning, let his arms drop. “What, not maidenly enough for you?” He looked his own femininely-clad self up and down.

“Oh, shut up, Crawly. You know I only seduce human women.” Gremory’s voice dropped into the deeper, richer timbre he usually used when speaking to fellow demons. Crowley’s grin faded when Gremory said, “You, on the other hand… seem to be playing with fire. What have you been doing up here? Don’t tell me you’re getting distracted by seducing an _angel_. Great joke, I think, hearing those humans call him your husband.”

“They see him trying to control my life, and they draw their own conclusions,” Crowley sighed in a casual, longsuffering way, even while inside he coiled tighter and tighter. “Trying being the uh, key word of course. I’ve got my own plans for him.”

“Seems you’ve been doing a lot of unconventional things with angels lately.” Gremory got up from the bed and circled him, an uncomfortable reversal of Crowley’s usual position. “You reek of holiness. I suppose that’s to be expected when you’re going around trying to eat it up. Crazy thing. Have you been up here too long? Getting so stir-crazy that the call of extinction is getting sweeter by the day?” Gremory reached for Crowley, made to tuck a stray hair behind his ear, and Crowley hissed and bared his teeth before he could stop himself. Gremory pulled back, but chuckled. “Why else would you be so intent on burning yourself away?”

“I’m playing a long game here,” Crowley growled quietly. “Don’t interfere.”

“Where’s the child?” Gremory’s black eyes took on an accusing sharpness. He took a long sniff through his delicately arched nose. “Still in Nazareth. So what are you doing here? Lazing around, blowing off the biggest job of your career? You must know that’s what it looks like.”

“Schfffpp, ha, fgh… you know _me_,” Crowley scoffed. “I work smarter, not harder. Big fan of subtlety. Subtle serpent. Yeup.” He cleared his throat. “Soon I’ll have this angel right where I want him, and then I can do whatever I like with the child. Two birds, one stone.”

“I don’t know about birds,” Gremory muttered impatiently. “And although I’d say it’s about time you finally made your good looks useful, are you sure you’re not the one being seduced?”

“W-hat?” Crowley snorted. “I don’t think angels are allowed to do things like that, even if it were in a… an elaborate plot to put a demon off their guard. Not even allowed to do it with humans, right? Guess some of them did before they fell too… never really saw the appeal.”

“Well, all I can say is, if you actually do have sex with an angel without getting melted to nothing in the process, I’d say either you or the angel must be more foolish than I thought.”

Crowley grimaced, trying to think fast enough to play along with Gremory’s assumptions. “I don’t know if that bit will be necessary. It’s more the uh… emotional, mental part that’s really… damning, isn’t it?”

“I’d say any angel who’d consider being seduced by you is already a bit far gone, mentally.”

“Ha-ha,” Crowley said, one edge of his mouth quirking up tentatively. “That’s exactly my point. And this one’s nearly there. So. Yeah.”

“Got him right where you want him, you said.” Gremory’s eyes were lit with cruel excitement. “Wrapped around your finger. Heart in your hands. Maybe you’re onto something here…I wonder what it would take to make an angel like that cry.” He nibbled his own lower lip as if anticipating something delicious.

“Heh… yeah. Guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” Crowley willed himself not to grimace, or wonder if that was a threat more toward him or toward Aziraphale. He tried to keep the grin up, and wasn’t sure how well he succeeded. “Well, been lovely catching up with you, but you know how it is: souls to tempt, heavenly plans to unravel—”

“You never answered my question, Crawly.” Gremory leaned toward Crowley’s face again, and though he was a bit shorter than Crowley in this form, Crowley only just kept himself from leaning back to avoid that spear-point gaze. “_Why _are you _here?_ Hell wants something more than promises to work with. If you can’t show verifiable progress, there are plenty of other demons who would be more than happy to take your place.”

“I’m sure there are.” Crowley shrugged, even as his back prickled with nerves. “Too bad for them, I was just about to head to Nazareth. And I don’t think, in the end, that Satan will be very happy if you hold me up, so, bye!”

He made to slip past Gremory to the door. The other demon’s small hand closed around his wrist like a manacle bolted to a ton of brick, nearly jolting his arm out of its socket.

“I know you think you’re hot stuff because of the whole apple thing,” Gremory murmured like silken venom, his two voices blending strangely. “But that was nothing compared to this. This is bigger than anything else that’s come before. And the longer you delay, the more powerful the child will be. _I’m not fooled by your excuses_.”

Crowley forced himself to meet Gremory stare for stare, pushing away every panicky thought. He took a breath, slow, barely detectable, until he could lift his eyebrows, and smile, and speak in a light, amused voice.

“That’s only a few of the reasons I’ll _so_ enjoy proving you wrong.”

The hatred in Gremory’s eyes was a good sign, Crowley told himself desperately. It meant the other demon was off-balance. A good sign. A sign that he’d not been caught in his bluff. Not that it was really a bluff.

Slowly, Gremory released him. “Go then,” he spat.

Crowley did a jaunty little bow, turned on his heel (nearly whipping his hair across the other demon’s face) and took long, quick strides out of the room and into the street, before anyone else could stop him.

The first moment no one was looking, he took wing in heron form, full speed toward Nazareth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. All the stuff about common figs vs sycomore figs was discovered during a late night google dive looking for kinds of wood that were used for building in Israel. Check out [ this pdf](https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/Hort_306/reading/Reading%2010-2.pdf) for more info. It's fascinating stuff. Common figs are also pollinated by fig wasps but the figs digest the female wasps if they get trapped inside.  
2\. Gremory is a preexisting demon who is known for seducing maidens, as well as revealing mysteries, and mostly appears in woman form but still uses he/him pronouns. Seriously, I didn't make this up. I had to include him because I love this.


	9. Chapter 9

If anyone in Nazareth had looked up, that particular afternoon, they would have assumed a vulture was circling the town. Perhaps some of them did for the several minutes the goliath heron was up there, its distance difficult to judge due to its size. In any case, it probably would have been seen as a bad omen, and Crowley was fully aware of this, and of the fact that the longer he stayed up here deciding what to do, the less time he had to enact any plan he came up with.

Time. He needed more time, away from the angel…. Below, a small mob of lesser demons could be seen just on the outskirts of town, harassing some sheep. A plan slowly coalesced out of the mess of desperate thought. Perhaps not a good plan, but a plan that would at least buy him time.

Crowley could smell through the background simmer of evil lingering from his meeting with Gremory, could feel the familiar brightness of Jesus, long before he actually landed near the house, out of sight of the others. A few weeks had changed very little, but he didn’t approach right away. Instead he paced in human form, trying to plan his words ahead, if Mary was there, or Joseph. Every scenario left a bitter taste in his mouth: Tanis, finally visiting, asking to take Jesus on a walk alone—even as well as Mary had seemed to think of him back in Egypt, she wasn’t likely to say yes without some questioning.

But there was nothing for it. He’d just have to be convincing. Crowley took a deep breath, pasted on his most angelic smile, and stepped toward the house.

Three steps after that, he stopped with a strangled gasp. It was as if he’d run into an invisible, electrified spider-web. His limbs felt sluggish, the very air resisting him, prickling, making the atoms of his physical form feel jelly-like and unstable. He took two steps back and the feeling immediately eased.

“Hm,” he grumbled, brow furrowed. Of course Aziraphale wouldn’t have left Jesus unprotected. Not with the likes of Gremory and others roaming about. And that explained why the lesser demons were messing about on the outskirts instead of trying their luck at a bigger prize.

Just as Crowley was waffling between turning back or hollering a greeting toward the house, the sound of the gate banging closed lifted his head. Jesus came galloping toward him, raising a literal cloud of dust in his haste.

“Crowley! _Crowley!_”

He heard the joy before he could even see the grin splitting Jesus’ face, and it felt a bit like his own chest split in echo, even before Jesus careened into it headfirst. What little air had been lazing around in Crowley’s lungs escaped all at once in a grunt and a wheeze.

“Crowley, Crowley-_Crowley!_ You’ve been gone for_ever!_” Jesus half-climbed him like a monkey and Crowley staggered, the boy’s holy self making Crowley’s entire torso feel like he’d spilled half a bowl of hot soup down his front.

“Ngh. Y-yeah.” Crowley steadied himself and cleared his throat. “Sorry about that… boring grown up things happened.”

“Is Aziraphale really your husband?” Jesus slid back down to stand on his own feet and blinked up at Crowley. “I looked and looked for you and I asked Aziraphale and he said he was taking care of you, but then I asked if you were sick and he said no, and he said you don’t even live together. So how was he supposed to be taking care of you?

“Uh, good question. Good enough I don’t really have an answer,” Crowley said, staring at the boy’s curls, his brown eyes, his giddy joy interrupting the more serious frowns that passed over his face as he asked his questions. The small hands holding onto his own helpless fingers, swinging his arms around. “Listen—”

“Can we play hide and seek? Why aren’t you a snake this time? Ooh, do you want to see the little house I built? It’s just right for if you made yourself a little smaller!”

“Uhhhhng, you built a—? M… maybe in a bit, but, first—”

“Oooh, your bracelet is so pretty.”

“Wh—th—yeah, I j—Jesus, I don’t have much time.”

“What?” The wind instantly went out of the boy’s sails. “You’re not staying?”

Crowley cringed inside, all the way down to his toes. He tried to tug his fingers free, but Jesus clung all the harder.

“Why?” Jesus cried. “You just got here. I miss you!”

“I’d love to stay, absolutely love to, it’s just, Iiiimmuhhh there’s a thing, I’m doing a… I’m on a mission, Jesus, a very secret mission, for heaven of course, and I need your help.”

“What is it?” Jesus’ eyes went wide, his voice hushed and secretive. “What’s the mission?”

“I have to leave if the mission fails, you understand. Possibly forever.”

“Forever?” Jesus’ face fell. “_No!_”

“Ah-ah, but! But!” Crowley held up his hand to stall Jesus’ despair. “If the mission goes well, I might be able to stay for a long, long time.”

“So what is it? What do you need me to do?” The child’s gaze was sharp and serious.

Crowley knelt, holding that angelic smile in place despite the tightness in his chest. “I’m on your side, you know. But the problem is hell… hell _thinks… _I’m on theirs.” He lifted a finger to his own lips and whispered. “Because I’m a _spy_.”

“A spy?” Jesus breathed in amazement.

“Do you, er, know what a spy is?” Crowley reminded himself he was speaking to a child who, for all he knew, had no exposure to the political quarrels of adults and all the various words related to them.

“Of course I know what a spy is! So you’re finding out what the devil is going to do, so you can help God protect me? Like Aziraphale does, but more sneaky?”

“Yes, exactly, exactly! More sneaky.” Crowley blew out a breath of relief. But the harder part was yet to come. “So _they_ think… that I’m trying to turn you away from the good side. Because that’s the job I told them I was doing. And now they’re starting to worry that it’s not working, and they might replace me with someone who _actually_ wants to hurt you.”

“I don’t have to hurt _you_, do I?” Jesus’ face pinched in worry.

“What?” Crowley laughed to cover the gut-punch that question delivered. Well, it was an option, if things really went pear-shaped. “No, no, not unless our first plan fails.”

“So what’s our first plan?”

“Our first plan,” Crowley said with forced confidence, “is to convince the other demons that you’re on _their_ side.”

He watched Jesus’ face closely, waiting for the revulsion that would have been a natural response for such a holy child. Revulsion followed by distrust. But Jesus just looked worried.

“How are we going to make them believe that?”

“Ridiculously gullible, demons,” said Crowley, with only a smidge more confidence than he felt. “If I could convince them I ate an angel, I can convince them of anything. All you have to do is tell them you want to help them. Tell them it’s unfair what God did to them. Act angry and vengeful, that sort of thing. But tell them you haven’t come into your full power yet, and when you do, you’ll remember them.”

“I don’t know,” Jesus mumbled nervously, one hand wadded in Crowley’s tunic. “So I’m just supposed to talk to them?”

“They won’t hurt you,” Crowley promised, with a gut-deep pang of fear and determination. “Especially if you convince them you’re on their side. It’ll keep you safe for longer, and give us even more of an advantage against them when you’re older. They won’t be trying as hard to stop you if they think you’re working for them.”

“I guess so.” Jesus’ voice was small, his eyes downcast. But then he took a deep breath and straightened, lifting his gaze back to meet Crowley’s. “Okay. What should I do?”

“Follow me,” said Crowley, and stood, one arm stretched over and toward Jesus like a protective wing. “Stay close. If we leave the protection Aziraphale set for you, they’ll find us, and then it’s our chance to talk.”

Jesus took Crowley’s hand in both of his and squeezed it tight. The trust in that gesture made Crowley’s throat hurt, and he couldn’t bear to look at the boy as he led the way out into the wilderness. It was all true, he told himself. This was a risk, but it was his only chance to prevent being taken off the job and replaced by someone who would mean actual harm to Jesus. It was a way out for both of them.

Jesus looked back only once, just before the gate to his home was about to be obscured by the crest of a small hill.

“I should have told mama and papa where I was going,” Jesus mumbled.

“They wouldn’t understand,” Crowley soothed. “It would have just made them worry.”

Jesus made an indistinct, uncertain noise, but kept walking.

“What are demons actually like?” he asked, as the last of the buildings disappeared from view behind them. “Do they even look like people?”

“Most of them look like people… but ugly, or unnatural somehow. Sometimes unnaturally beautiful.” Crowley kept his own snake-eyes averted, wondering if Jesus would believe the excuse that they were part of his disguise.

“And what does God look like?”

Crowley very nearly stopped in his tracks, unable to stop his memory from recalling not so much an image as a sense of radiance, a feeling, a presence. It hurt to remember. Through the pain of that, he could smell the lesser demons approaching, and glanced over both his shoulders, prickling with the instinct for flight.

“I can’t describe it,” Crowley said hoarsely, and cleared his throat.

“The scriptures talk about God appearing to prophets all the time, but it’s more like a voice, or a pillar of fire, or burning bush. Was the burning bush actually God? Is God like fire?”

“The burning bush?” Crowley said nervously, because he could hear the soft scrabbling of the demons approaching, but couldn't spot them yet. It sounded like a veritable horde. His head swiveled this way and that. Were there more than he’d counted from above, hidden among the rocks? “No, I think that was more just—”

A large scraggly bush nearby burst into flame.

Jesus screamed and collided with Crowley’s leg, clinging tighter around his waist than Crowley had known a child could cling, while lesser demons emerged by the dozen, their black lips split in grins, some bearing torches of hellish flame, some only carrying knives or hooks or other crude weapons. They were human-like, most of them a little shorter than Crowley.

“Hey guys!” Crowley called. “Why the secretive approach? Come on now. That’s no way to greet your new boss.”

There were indeed more than he'd expected, but despite their number, Crowley knew their type—not very strong, not very smart. No problem. The hellfire, though, was another story… his eyes found the demon who had lit the bush aflame, its torch a bit bigger than the rest.

“What are you on about now, Crawly?” one of the demons sniveled with a greedy grin. “Rumors are true, are they, you going soft, gettin’ sweet on angels and such like? We’ve got no master but Satan, right. Where’s your loyalty?”

“Loyalty?” Crowley wrinkled his nose as he scanned the scene and planned his first move. “Ehhh, not very demonic.”

“Fair point.”

“Shut up, Gus. My point is we can do a better job than him at messin’ with the kid there.”

“What are you going to do, eat him?” Crowley laughed. “You sorry lot have nothing on my experience, and let me tell you—as someone just a_ bit_ above you in power and who’s actually eaten an angel—if you tried that, you can say goodbye to your bodies at the very least. And if your souls manage to survive it long enough to tell Satan what you’ve done, well, that would be the last thing you ever do. He wants this boy _alive_.”

“Alive? Alive?” The confused mutters ran around the ring of demons, ever-shrinking around Crowley.

“Why would he want him alive?” one of the demons finally asked.

“_Why would he want him alive?_” Crowley gasped out in mocking disbelief. “Why would—oh bloody infernos, you really have no idea what you’re doing, do you? Think! If we have the child of the Almighty on our side, what chance do you think heaven has against us?”

The demons’ faces grew a bit pointy with defensive annoyance, like a cat flattening its ears. Jesus was quiet and still, too still, frozen against Crowley’s side. He ran a hand over the boy’s head reassuringly.

“Now if I were you,” Crowley crooned, when they’d had a few moments to consider the possibilities. “I’d put out that hellfire before something happened to the prize Satan has been seeking so carefully.”

The demons frowned at each other, and their creeping advance on him slowed.

“Why would the kid wanna work for us?” one demanded.

Crowley snorted. “Why wouldn’t he? Have you heard anything about his life? God expects him to do everything for Them, tosses him down here, nearly gets him murdered right off the bat, nothing but a smelly old stable to sleep in, earthly parents who have no real power or social standing, rabbis who think they know better than he does… he’s had enough and he’s not even into his full power yet! Right, Jesus?”

“R…right,” Jesus squeaked, and slowly unclenched his arms from around Crowley’s waist. “Um. It’s not fair.” He glanced up at Crowley for reassurance.

Crowley gave only the slightest nod as encouragement, pleading silently with the kid to try to be just a _little _more convincing.

“I don’t… I don’t know if I like all the rules anyway!” said Jesus, picking up steam. “And… I want to help you. I’m angry at God just like you! The way things are isn’t right. Why can’t God and the angels just fix it by themselves?”

“Hey… yeah!” said one of the demons.

“He’s got a point,” said Gus.

“It doesn’t make sense!” said Jesus, before the other demons could interrupt. “There’s so many things that aren’t fair.”

“So you tell head office I’ve got this all under control,” Crowley said. “And Jesus here might be able to pull some strings, get you all into better positions. If nothing else, Satan will be pleased that you didn’t get in the way.”

The demons muttered to each other, a chittering like a cross between insects and monkeys.

“Yeah. When I’m big and powerful,” Jesus interjected with forced bravado, “I’ll remember you, if you’re nice—I mean, if you, you know, um, don’t get in my way. If you help me I’ll help you. That’s fair, right?”

“How do we know he’s_ actually_ on our side?” one of them asked. “Still seems a bit too heavenly if you ask me. Speakin’ of fairness and all. And he smells like an angel.”

Crowley scoffed, laughed, and slung an arm around Jesus. “Well, of course he’s still got heavenly power. That’s why he’s so valuable, right? Like a secret weapon. But he’s letting me touch him without vaporizing me, isn’t he? What other evidence do you need? I’d say you should come up and test it yourselves, but seeing as how he doesn’t have a reason to trust you yet, that might not be a good idea. You could start, though, by getting rid of that.” Crowley tossed his head toward the hellfire.

Slowly, after more chittering and grumbling, the hellfire began to sputter out. Jesus looked up at Crowley with a thrilled grin. For a moment, he thought they’d won—but then a roar rattled his bones.

Crowley spread his wings, knocking one or two lesser demons away through the sheer force of their extension, before beating at the earth at the pace of a panicked heartbeat. Just as his feet left the ground, Jesus clutched tightly in his arms, lion’s fangs sank into Crowley’s ankle, and a scream knocked against his teeth, his other leg kicking wildly at Valefar’s face.

“Wait! _Wait_ you bloody—_ghghRAA! Listen to me _I was trying to—_NGH_.”

Wings straining, beating harder than ever in his life… even so Crowley was being pulled down, a heavy paw swiping at Jesus’ face—“Shit shit_shit!!_” Crowley twisted desperately, felt the claws drag across the back of his thigh, felt the blood begin to well out—he couldn’t concentrate but he had to, _had to,_ or it was all over.

Just as he felt his power finally coming back into focus, white wings clipped his arm, stabbed radiance through his eyes, and Crowley fell, released from the lion’s jaws, leg buckling beneath him and landing him on one knee, gasping and staring at the spear jutting out from Valefar’s neck. A familiar scent flooded in as he drew a breath to scream again at the impact on his shredded ankle. The other demons were flattening themselves to the earth, and all Crowley could see was a blur of white curls, white feathers, the spear-point yanked from Valefar’s neck trailing blood as it swept threateningly toward the other demons.

“BE GONE!”

The sound of Aziraphale’s voice, unmistakably his and yet full of power—that, and the sight of the bloodied spear staining the angel’s hands, sent the lesser demons fleeing and Crowley’s feeble grip on the situation slipping as surely as if someone had stomped on his hands—he was off the ledge, scraping around for another handhold and full of the cold, dizzy exhilaration of a narrow brush with extinction. The thrill of warmth which had flashed inside Crowley like a supernova began to implode, transforming into a black hole.

What had he been _doing_ these past few weeks? He’d hung around with an angel, let people call them _married_, let down his guard—even gotten nearly drunk a time or two. He could have been killed or at the very least discorporated at almost any moment, easy, and Aziraphale probably would have dusted off his hands and gone on with his life, little sip of wine, oh the weather’s lovely today….

_But he didn’t,_ a voice whispered in the back of Crowley’s mind, in that split second of doomed hope before Aziraphale turned and looked down on him. At the fury on Aziraphale’s face, the voice inside shifted in tone. In the light of that radiance he could only feel small, kneeling there for all the world like a shriveled wretch at the throne of God, could only think one thing. _Of course. He was toying with you._

“Crawly,” Aziraphale said. It fell heavy and cold as a stone from his mouth, and Crowley couldn’t help himself, couldn’t bear to hear him use that name in that voice.

“That’s not my name.” It came out a strained whisper.

Aziraphale didn’t seem to hear him, looking instead with tenderness and horror at Jesus, whose trembling had fused with Crowley’s at some point. Hot moisture bloomed in Crowley’s gut and he looked down, half expecting a wound, but it was all the boy’s hot tears and breath, soaking into his stomach.

“You promised, Crawly,” said Aziraphale, his voice a soft, dull quiver, the anger in his face falling into betrayal. “I wanted to believe you were different. Oh, I’ve… been a fool.”

“No, Aziraphale, I—ngk—I didn—let me explain—”

“My dear child.” The angel’s voice was so very soft as his knees bent a little. “Let go of that demon and come with me.” He reached out his hand, the one with that fancy ring on the little finger, and flicked Crowley a warning look.

“You killed—you—Crowley wa-was just trying to help,” Jesus wobbled. “He’s not really a demon. They just wouldn’t listen and—”

“Angel, please,” Crowley said, nearly begged. “I wasn’t going to let them hurt him. I had this under control until Valefar sh—”

“You promised,” Aziraphale choked out, as if he might cry, and Crowley’s words died, bitter at the back of his throat as he swallowed them down like bile. “You promised you wouldn’t come back here.” A short, bitter laugh escaped him. “I suppose I’m the fool here for trusting a demon’s word. Your friendliness and harmlessness—it was never real, of course. None of it.”

“He’s_ not a demon!_” Jesus cried out.

“I’m sorry, Jesus. Truly I am.” Aziraphale did indeed sound sorry, spread thin with regret. “I should have told you sooner. You and Mary and Joseph, all of you—should have never allowed evil this close to you. I nearly failed to keep you safe and I will _not_ be making that mistake again.”

“Angel, listen to me—”

“No!” Aziraphale’s look burned with betrayal and hurt, but Crowley gritted his teeth against the rock in his chest and drew breath to speak anyway. “I can’t—I—please, not another word from—”

Crowley let his words rush out. “I had a plan to help protect him, if it wasn’t me they would have sent somebody else, somebody like these idiots who wouldn’t think twice about roasting him on a spit—you think Satan actually cares how God’s plan for Jesus fails, just so long as it does?! Why would I have—”

“I_ can’t trust you!_” Aziraphale yelled. “You took him out of my protection in the first place—if it weren’t for you, he would have been safe today! If—if it weren’t for you distracting me, and then running off, and—if I hadn’t been so _stupid_—”

“_STOP!_” Jesus screeched. “Stop fighting!”

Aziraphale’s mouth opened and closed like a fish on land. Ah, Crowley thought, half deliriously. So Aziraphale felt that thunder-strike of divine imperative just as deeply. He couldn’t have spoken even if his throat weren’t feeling a bit like it had a noose around it.

“Crowley was trying to make the demons leave me alone,” Jesus said, between sniffs as he regained his composure. “He was just pretending to be on their side. He was being clever. He said if I told them I was on their side, they’d stop trying to hurt me, and then we could find out more of what they’re planning together. He’s a spy and he’s on _our_ side, he’s _our friend!_”

Aziraphale shook his head, a crestfallen look on his face, lips pressed tight together.

“It’s true!” Jesus cried.

The angel advanced, empty-handed… reached for Jesus and laid gentle, firm hands on his arm. “It’s true, he is very clever... too clever. I must take you home,” Aziraphale near-whispered. “It’s not safe out here. Other demons might be on their way, more powerful ones… and as for_ you_….”

Aziraphale’s hurt and guarded eyes met Crowley’s, and Crowley wished they hadn’t. The instinct to run pounded through him like a pulse and he tried to get to his feet, bit back a groan as his leg wobbled and bucked like a sapling in a gale. Aziraphale’s other hand found his arm and again came that treacherous hope, that foolish assumption that it was a helping hand, a friendly hand—but then the angel dragged him forward as he stepped toward town.

It took several dozen agonizing steps in that steely grip, and half a dozen gulps, before Crowley could even attempt to start talking.

“I wasnng…never wanted to hurt you, or him,” Crowley choked out, weakly squirming against the angel’s grasp on his arm. “Let _go! _We should all scatter—I’ll leave and never come back, just—”

“He’s telling the truth, Aziraphale!” Jesus insisted, both his hands still holding onto Crowley’s hand, the one Aziraphale had left free. “It’s true, he just wanted to help me; he wanted the demons to leave me alone!”

“Even if that’s true, it hardly matters what he wanted, Jesus,” Aziraphale murmured grimly. “He’s a demon. He has orders from the evil one to corrupt you at the very least. Probably just wanted the others out of the way so they couldn’t steal his glory.”

“_You_ tell him, Crowley,” Jesus cried, but Crowley looked away, couldn’t bear to return the gaze. “Tell him you’re an angel too. Tell him you’re good.”

He swallowed again, dragged forward helplessly against his will, trying to force down the nausea pooling in his empty stomach. How could he lie to the son of God? How could he possibly do anything else? The angel’s grip on his arm was painful, terrifyingly strong. Crowley stumbled, but Aziraphale’s pace never slacked, leaving his knees and shins scraping along the ground as he struggled against him, but there was no getting out of that iron grip.

The lesser demons were following them, their greed pressing down their fear. A few leapt toward them in foolish daring and Crowley flinched, and Jesus screamed, but one by one they were repelled by a swift stroke of Aziraphale’s spear, swatted aside like so many flies.

Crowley watched, understanding spreading on him like a chill. Aziraphale was only sparing him for the moment, until he could exact full judgment. With new desperation, Crowley threw himself toward the ground in vain. Pain jolting up his leg at each step, wings put away, the uneven tug of resistance as Aziraphale half-dragged, half-carried him onward.

They slowed suddenly at the edge of town; Crowley felt himself collide with the holy barrier, the wrong magnetic end of Aziraphale’s protection. He dropped his weight toward the ground and Aziraphale grunted.

“What are you doing, Crawly?!”

“I can’t—gh—”

It was difficult to even speak. Tingles of pain raced up his spine the closer Aziraphale dragged him toward the gate.

“You’re hurting him!” Jesus cried.

Crowley writhed and dug in his heels, grunted and clawed, terror sinking into him at the solidity of Aziraphale’s stance, the stony, resolved stare straight ahead, and the unflinching grip, ever tightening.

“I. Said. I. Wouldn’t. Come. Back. Now. LET. ME. GO,” Crowley gritted out between clenched teeth, pulling away with each word and ending on a wordless snarl of pain and frustration.

“Aziraphale, please let him go!” Jesus cried.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” said Aziraphale. “Where is he to run? Back to the demons?” 

Jesus whined wordlessly at that suggestion.

Without Crowley taking a single voluntary step, they were through the gate, through the door, and Mary was standing up, dropping the mending she’d been working on.

“Where did you go? Your father is looking for you!” was the first thing she said to Jesus, and then her eyes fell on Crowley where he’d half-fallen to the floor; for a split second, they lit up in recognition and joy, but it was quickly swept away by fear and concern. “Tanis?! Is—you’re bleeding! What happened to—”

Aziraphale stepped between them. “Mary, I’m afraid I have bad news. The person you knew as Tanis was a fake. This is a demon.”

_This is a demon_. Crowley didn’t normally put much stock in human pronouns, but somehow the way Aziraphale said it felt much more alienating than if he’d said _he is a demon_ or _she is a demon_, coming up only just shy of _ugh, it’s a demon,_ in Crowley’s mind. Despite the way the air around him was trying to press him into nonexistence, despite the throbbing, piercing pain in his leg, he tried to stand up, stand normally, like a guest instead of a captive… for all the good it would do.

“It’s not true, mama!” Jesus insisted. “He’s not evil, he’s nice! He helped me, he helped me when Achi died and he was my friend before that too.”

“Wait. I don’t understand. Tanis is our friend who helped us in Egypt, she—Jesus, this isn’t your angel, she’s—” Mary faltered, staring at all three of them in turn before refocusing on Jesus. Here, she seemed to regain her footing, and she knelt in front of the boy, gathered him in her arms—Jesus’ hands slipped from Crowley’s, and he buried his face in his mother’s hair, the scared sobs he’d been holding in bursting out of him for a few seconds, released by the safety of home. “You’re shaking, Jesus. What happened? Are you hurt?”

Jesus shook his head, unable to speak yet.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. “Craw—this—this demon led Jesus into an ambush of devils.”

“What?” Mary breathed, looking up at Crowley over Jesus’ shoulder with wide disbelieving eyes. In a split second something shifted, and Crowley looked away, turned his head down and to the side, but it was too late. She’d already seen, already recognized what her mind had skimmed over before, connected the snake-gold of his eyes to what Jesus had already told her when describing his _friend_. “But….”

“_Tanis_ was only ever an alias,” Aziraphale murmured sadly.

“Mary, please believe me.” Crowley hated begging. Hated it, but here he was, even pushed onto his knees by pain and pressure. “I never meant any of you harm. I swear.”

“I left him alone with you,” Mary said, rising slowly to her feet, and Crowley knew that look in her eye. It was the look mothers of many species get in their eyes when facing down a predator. Fearless, furious. “For hours. I let you bathe him and feed him and….”

“And _nothing happened_. I didn’t even mean to be in Egypt when you were there; I was on a different assignment, I just—”

“You’re not even going to deny it?” Mary stared at him in horror. “I thought of you like an older sister. Like an aunt. I felt safe with you. But I wasn’t… I left him alone with you….”

“Yes, and I never let anything—”

“You have to leave.” Mary’s voice shook, her grip on Jesus tightened.

“Mama, no!” Jesus pulled back, looked back at Crowley. “He’s not bad! He’s good! Tell her, Crowley! You’re not a demon.” Jesus’ voice was high and thick with tears. “You’re not, right?” His little shoulders shook.

“Ghkghuh.” The nausea was just from pain, Crowley told himself. “I….”

“We’re supposed to be friends,” Jesus wept, pulling back just enough to sniff and smear the tears along his own forearm. “He’s not right—it’s not true, is it? Crowley?”

And then not even wordless noises could make it past the tightness in Crowley’s throat when Jesus looked up at him with those red-rimmed, terrified, hopeful eyes. He couldn’t have breathed if he wanted to.

“He is,” Aziraphale said softly. A shameful family secret. That’s what Crowley was, at best. At worst, a curse, a monster, a thing not ever meant to be spoken of by good people, by angels, by the son of God. Aziraphale’s hand finally released him, snatched away as if from a hot stove.

He tried to make one last protest, tried to find his voice, some perfect unforeseen arrangement of words that might salvage this.

“I wasn… was never going to hurt you.” He addressed this to Mary, unable to bear looking at the angel even though he spoke as much to him as anyone. How could this be the same day Aziraphale had looked at him with a fond smile and accused him of being kind? The same day the angel had pulled water from the air to care for a tree Crowley had been foolish enough to think of as theirs.

Stupid. So completely, ridiculously stupid. All of it. His plan, his hope, this helpless draw back to the flame. His hands hurt, and he realized they were fists at his sides, the nails biting into his palms deeper with every second Aziraphale and Mary stared at him with such hurt and disappointment.

“Of course you would say that,” said the angel in a broken whisper.

“But you _are_ good,” Jesus insisted. “Tell them you don’t work for evil, that you’re only pretending!”

He wasn’t. He couldn’t. And that realization made Crowley at last lose his hold. Why had he been climbing in the first place? Why struggle against gravity just to fall again?

There was a rushing in his ears. Jesus was arguing with his mother, crying, thrashing, yelling for Crowley to stand up for himself, to tell everyone he was good. Aziraphale sadly countering each point—_he only wants you to think so—he’s deceived you_—but layered over them were the voices of other angels, the voice of One, the last time Crowley had ever heard it. 

“You’re never to touch him,” Mary said, shaken, a seething guilt behind it. “You’re never to speak to him. Get out and don’t come back.”

“_No!_” Jesus screamed.

The room was closing in, darkening beyond what the reed-mat shades should have offered on such a clear day. Feeling miles away from his body, and yet trapped so deep within it that he was looking at the world through a long dark tunnel, Crowley fumbled behind him for the door, shuffled backward, not looking at any of them.

“_No!_ No, no,_ no,_” Jesus wailed. “It’s not true. Tell them, Crowley. You’re _good!_”

“’mnot.” The words caught behind his teeth, never quite making it out, and Crowley half-fell back through the opening door, burst into wing, his human form vanishing like dew in the sun. He had to go, and the holy protection around their home was all too eager to eject him. The need to disappear was all he knew, deeper than bone; he recognized this feeling, the sensation of not fitting, of being squeezed out through the cracks of the mould he had always been too misshapen to fit. A dark ooze, that’s all. Waste. The leftovers, squirming away to somewhere dark and secret before the maker could realize Their mistake and destroy him for good.

Maybe it would be better if They did.

Crowley paid no mind to where he flew. His thoughts were spirals, wagon-wheels going down old ruts in the road, rattling and breaking on them—there was nowhere to go, nowhere to run from the answer at the end of everything, the dreaded truth of what he was. All his half-baked plans had been based on a false, laughable hope.

He wasn’t paying attention, and he burst into flame.

Blue flame. Sulfur, icy-hot. Crowley lost all sense of time as he fell, wings half-useless, the fire roaring in his ears, his own choked-off scream inaudible over the sound of it.

Could he fall twice? Had everything since then been a desperate hallucination?

When he hit the ground, he smelled sand, and the sun hadn’t disappeared. Everything was still bright, overexposed even, and the fire left his body, coalesced into an ashen horse—no, centaur—no, horse, its eyes sunken, its bones shifting in and out of its skin as its flint-like hooves carried it forward, its mane a rippling mirage of heat too bright to look at, which was just fine by Crowley, who didn’t like to look at Pluton’s unsettlingly unstable face anyway. It had a tendency to look like nearly everyone he’d ever watched die.

As the fire spread in a slow circle around him, first Pluton, then Gremory stepped within the ring, and Crowley tried to get upright, flailed his scorched heron’s wings, screeched helplessly at the pain of it, and finally gave up on limbs altogether.

_Hey, guys_, Crowley hissed, the whole serpentine length of him quivering in a weak, desperate laugh. _Nice of you to drop by and check on me, but as you can see, I’m doing just fine. Not sure what the fire’s about._

“Don’t play innocent, Crawly,” Gremory taunted. “You know exactly what you’ve done wrong. Now you’ve been banished from the child’s presence, your mission is forfeit. We’re here to take you back to hell.”

Crowley lifted his head, looking for an escape. In that instant Gremory stomped toward his head, but Crowley’s fangs found the other demon’s leg first, came away choking on foul ichors, slithering for the nearest crevice he could see.

A hoof came down on his neck. It shifted toward his skull, and the bones there ground together, his wide lidless eyes straining against the pressure of his skull.

“You’re coming back to hell with us, body or no body,” sneered Gremory as she limped back toward him. “Your choice.”

_Alright, fine, fine, alright_, Crowley prattled desperately the moment he could form words, some irrational part of him still clinging to useless instincts like _the will to live_, the will to try and slither his way out of this, the four-thousand-year-old habit of holding out for just the right excuse or justification to pop into his mind.

He didn’t close his eyes, but the earth swallowed him, went black, oily, sulfuric. An old, cursed ache started up in Crowley’s shoulder-blades, spreading through his chest and spine to every inch of him as he re-materialized face-down on the floor of Dagon’s office, the taste of demon blood still heavy on his human tongue. Aziraphale was right… the stuff_ was_ vile.

Aziraphale. The angel’s furious eyes flashed in his mind. Jesus.

“Get up, Crawly.” Beelzebub’s bored drawl brought Crowley’s head up off the floor in surprise, and he swayed to his feet, or tried to—black blood pooled under his feet, his leg buckled under him at the first try; he didn’t quite manage to play it off as a stylish swagger, instead catching himself on the edge of Dagon’s desk.

“Lord Beelzebub… what an honor,” Crowley said, scrounging up his most shamelessly fawning grin.

“I hear you’ve failed quite spectacularly.” The lord of the flies was standing next to Dagon, holding a report that Dagon had no doubt just handed them.

“This one’s gotten distracted,” Gremory said. “Soft, too. He even—”

“Guys, guys! Guys! Come on!” Crowley interrupted, finally finding the correct angle to stand on his good leg without seeming to favor the other too much. “You and those other lesser demons were the ones who started drawing attention to yourselves! Of course an angel was going to come down and dole out some righteous fury, that’s not _my_ fault. I’m not that clumsy, I had a _plan_, I—”

“Your plan failed,” scoffed Gremory.

“You haven’t had much to show for your plans these last few years,” Beelzebub’s voice droned. “You’re being taken off assignment and made an example of.”

Dagon’s pointed teeth were widening in a grin that Crowley didn’t like at all.

“Oh. No, no, _no_ come on,” he groaned. “You’ve no idea what sort of—what angelic influences I was dealing with up there—”

“Influenceszz? Were you being… influenced, Crawly?” Beelzebub asked, sharing a look with Gremory.

“What? No!” Crowley made a face he hoped clearly demonstrated the ridiculousness of this accusation, even while his stomach tried to twist itself into a pretzel. Satan, it took so much _energy_ to play it cool when the world was falling on him like an avalanche. Pain didn’t help either, making him dizzy. The room was tilting. Just keep talking, Crowley. “Tpfft. No. All I’m saying is, is… is it really necessary to, you know… I mean, if you want to make an example of my work in a goo—ba—ghk, flattering light, let other demons build on what I was doing, go for it, but—”

“Oh, Crawly,” grinned Dagon, leaning across the desk, all teeth, the lone lantern over his head putting an image of an angler fish into Crowley’s mind. “I’m going to enjoy letting your screams put the fear of failure into your replacements.”

“I’m telling you I nearly _had him_!” Crowley hissed urgently. “Dagon, I had Satan’s permission, you can read it all in the file, you can’t just—”

“I’ve read it. I’m lord of the files, I read everything. Including this.” Dagon pinched a memo off the desk and held it up for Crowley to see, though Crowley couldn’t quite focus on the words, noticing eyes glowing in the dark edges of his vision. “Your time’s up.”

The shadows of the room—which was most of it, really—came alive with lesser demons, hungry, restless, clawing hands, tails, leaping out and swarming, scratching, gnawing while Gremory laughed, Pluton’s flames glowing and reflected in hundreds of glassy eyes—

Crowley bit his tongue, tried to curl in on himself, knew better than to fight, that it would only make things worse. But even demons have an instinct to try and escape pain, and Crowley’s human body had its own ideas, arms moving against his will to try and strike out, to pull him out from under the avalanche of teeth and nails, stingers, roiling across his skin, tearing out his hair, scraping against the teeth he’d clenched shut.

“Take him to the pit. He’s getting blood all over my files.”

It was almost a relief to be dragged along the floor, to be rolled over the edge, and to sink, burning, into the boiling pools. He knew what was coming, a state where he wouldn’t be able to think anymore, where the sulfur would soak into his lungs, his eyes, somehow never destroying his body, never releasing him prematurely.

His last coherent thought before he lost hold of himself was of how it had felt when Jesus’ tears had touched his skin, how it had felt to swallow an angel. Strange, that holiness and evil hurt in nearly the exact same way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Pluton is a variant of Pluto/Hades, who were basically the same god of the earth/underworld but with differently interpreted roles, Pluto being the more favorable figure, associated more with the riches of the earth. I took some massive liberties with his depiction here as a demon, combining the concept of death with the pale horse from the bible, and the deadliness of plutonium's use in modern warfare. I know the blue flames were inspired by something specific I read but I can't seem to find the random page I found it on x_x if I do I'll link to it here.


	10. Chapter 10

There is a limit to the kinds of physical torments one might experience in hell, mainly because most demons lack imagination. Crowley, who had perhaps the best imagination of any demon, felt footsteps vibrate the plank he was bound to, and there was no doubt in his mind that Dagon was about to move on to another round of amusements at his expense. What was it going to be this time? Acid-tipped skewers? Flesh-eating insects? Partial dismemberment? Getting gnawed on by hellhounds? 

At the moment Crowley was strapped down so tight he would have long since lost limbs if he’d been _actually _human, his head submerged in a pool of foul water full of some hellish form of leech. He’d had to stop breathing, keep his eyes shut, but that hadn’t stopped some of them getting inside his nose, and it was taking every ounce of self-control not to scream and thrash like Dagon wanted him to—screaming would mean opening his mouth after all.

He had, of course, been cut off from the ability to transform into anything other than this human shape, which Dagon was carefully keeping from dying. Such privileges were for demons who weren’t being displayed as samples of catastrophic failure.

The water trickled out of Crowley’s ears and nose as the plank teeter-tottered him back upright, but the leeches stayed put. He dared to sputter out a few tiny, short breaths through his lips; he’d missed breathing, even the noxious fumes of hell. He cracked one eye open; Dagon’s form was a mere blurry backlit shadow.

“You’re boring me,” Dagon sighed, and Crowley felt nothing noteworthy at this through the thick static in his mind, other than the distant thought that he ought to brace himself for whatever “interesting” thing Dagon had come up with. “Get up.”

With a snap of Dagon’s fingers, the restraints on Crowley’s body disappeared—his now-free limbs, jelly-like, didn’t prevent him from falling flat on his face at his first attempt to sit up in who knew how long. He lay there for a moment, arms curling up toward his face, fingers weakly digging at the suckers on his skin. Crowley shuddered at just how many of them there were; he hadn’t felt all of them attach, hadn’t realized they were blanketing his skin. His fingers grew slick from the effort, coated in his own blood.

“Back to work with you. I’d make you do filing for me for the rest of eternity, but I don’t trust you with it.” Dagon sucked at his pointed teeth and sighed, pacing a circle around Crowley. “Go on, get up! Before I staple you to the floor by the edges of your skin again.” 

A kick drew a wheezing groan from Crowley’s stomach, and he wobbled halfway to his feet, abandoning the leech-removal in favor of stumbling away from Dagon. Next thing he knew he was being shoved into a pitch-black lift, one of the type that shoved demons head-first through Earth’s surface, and someone was saying “Just stick to your usual temptations for a while.”

The worst torment, Crowley remembered then, was silence. Anything another demon might say or do was nothing compared to what Crowley’s mind was capable of. And fully half of what it supplied was simply memories of reality. 

Reality. The awful product of God’s imagination.

A reality in which there was no point to anything he did—even his best intentions turned to disaster. He could not imagine bothering with another second of service to hell, or heaven, or anyone else. He would lie down on the surface and wait for extinction. Sleep for millennia. 

Crowley emerged in the light of dawn or dusk, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t stand, legs folded underneath him, overwhelmed at the difference in smell and sensation. The air was sharp and heavy with the smell of salt and minerals—he could even taste it on his tongue—the ground beneath him coarse, prickly and pale, and to his left, a vast expanse of inky water lay like a black mirror of the stars and sickle moon. 

The hell-leeches were gone but the bleeding sores left behind stung at the salt beneath his palms, his shins, the tops of his bare feet. But there was a sky open above him. It was so much bigger than anything in hell. Crowley looked up at his old creations, and bowed to them over his own knees, dug his fingers through the beautifully jagged, crusty shore, and very nearly kissed the ground.

He had told himself he would stop feeling or wanting anything. And for the next hour, curled up there, he nearly did. But then the sun rose over the Dead Sea and lit up the cliffs and mesas in bands of gold and white, and Crowley lifted his head to the warm wind and remembered that first thrill of breaking up through the floor of Eden after falling, after floundering for untold timelessness with nothing better than heaven to wish for.

Then came Earth. Earth was possibility, and feeling, and a tiny modicum of freedom. 

Crowley rose with the sun, a little at a time, hour by hour, until he was walking again.

…

The Dead Sea was east of Jerusalem. Crowley ignored the pull of the city, with its numerous souls waiting to be tempted. Two days on the road north helped Crowley’s body rediscover how to move in ways other than pained thrashing. At night, he flew or rested, falling into a stony trance, and by daylight he walked, until the hem of his long black clothing was ashy with dust. 

He tried to soak in the sensations of Earth as he traveled: the changing colors of the sky, the temperature and smell of the wind, the texture of different plants and rocks and soil. Tried to make himself a hollow vessel for the world to pass through… but then came the inevitable thoughts of Good and Evil, and the nature of his being, decided by God. This world was never meant for him to enjoy. 

A part of him clung to every bit of it all the more stubbornly for knowing that. Even just enjoying the smell of early morning air was an act of defiance, but he still couldn’t think his way around the cold hard truth; it all made no difference to God. His existence meant nothing to anyone but himself, apart from perhaps as a target in a cosmic game of darts. A dust mote drifts on the air between bouts of irritating breathing creatures, or settling on a thing of beauty to dull its shine… all it was ever good for.

He wouldn’t stay, wouldn’t even speak to anyone if he could help it. But if there was one thing Crowley could never escape (well, there were several things), it was the _need to know_. Last he’d seen Jesus, the kid and his lone guardian angel had become prime targets for some big names in hell, and Crowley hadn’t heard a thing about them in all his torments.

It didn’t count as getting involved. Just satisfying an itch. Getting closure, so he could move on to… whatever great pointless Nothing came after this. Lots of sleeping and drinks, probably.

His senses raw from so long Below, he wasn’t even to the edge of Nazareth when the scent of Aziraphale tickled his nose, half-imagined, like the faintest whiff of spring blooming through the bars of a dungeon cell, parchment scattered with crumbs of fresh bread; Crowley’s whole body tensed from his stomach outward, and he stopped, remembering that soft, kind face glowing with righteous anger. He wondered if maybe he should turn east a little early… if, after all, he _could _handle an eternity of not seeing for himself what had happened. 

Crowley stood there like a prey animal bracing for the ambush, a lizard stone-still upon the rocks in hopes that it wouldn’t be spotted. But the longer he stood there in that nowhere spot of road, watching ants and beetles cross in front of his sandals, the longer the fear took on a welcome edge. A greater closure than what he’d originally hoped for—an end to all of it might not be so bad. Better to be struck down all at once rather than stuck in a gradually-worsening eternity. Was the occasional sight of sunlight turning dead grasses gold really worth all that suffering?

He kept walking.

A small caravan passing into town didn’t notice him slip in among them. He kept his head low and his hair covered, the human chatter going in one ear and out the other, even when he tried to listen—his mind was only looking for one handful of names or voices. 

Finally, they stopped in a central part of town, and the wagons became sites for barter and trade. It was noisy and crowded, but even so, Crowley could sense Jesus nearby. His head came up, and his feet moved him toward the outer edge of everyone, eyes flitting over the many figures like striders on still water. 

There were young children here, but not many; Crowley saw three young girls tailing after a woman, and the sight of a curly-haired toddler chasing after a loose hen and her chicks made him do an irrational double-take. Jesus was_ here_, but where?

Like moving closer to the warmth of a fire, Crowley edged back into the crowd. As he passed behind a cart full of animal feed, the voices of raucous young men came from the other side. 

“Oh come on, you don’t have to!” 

“I’m pretty sure when your father told you to use that money for a treat, he didn’t mean a treat for the goats.” 

“No, he probably hoped I’d buy a particularly nice piece of wood instead,” came the wry laugh. “Actually I thought about it… the rosewood on that cart over there is the only one I wanted though, and it’s _way_ too much to buy without something special in mind.” 

Something in that voice felt familiar, but it didn’t _sound_ familiar.

“So buy some fruit or honey instead and share it with us!”

“Why don’t I share it with you _and _Nurit? She’s looking like she might have a lot of kids… she’s huge, and she doesn’t like the grain we have. I bet she would like some of the gourds that woman over there has, though.”

“Gourds?” one of the boys groaned. “Jesus, only you would use extra money from your dad to buy gourds for your goats instead of something actually good for you and your friends.”

There was an odd laugh, the laugh of someone who knows they’re the odd one out. Crowley had been standing by the animal feed cart, just listening, but at the sound of that laugh, he could no longer resist the urge to take a peek. He leaned around the edge of the cart, and saw a group of four teenage boys. 

Two of them were rather stocky, with plain, friendly faces. The third was like a marionette starting to finally put on muscle, and then there was the fourth. The picture of an awkward pubescent boy in all his glory, Jesus’ hair was at that awkward length where his curls weren’t doing him any favors, and his limbs were in the same sort of state. His nose was smudged with dirt. The shape of his face was caught between the cherubic perfection of childhood and the confidence of adulthood, and Crowley had never seen a more perfect, quintessential human in all his life. 

That was half the reason he stared too long. The other half was the realization that he’d just been stuck in hell for at least half a dozen years. 

Jesus paused mid-laugh and glanced back, over his shoulder. His brown eyes met Crowley’s, and went round.

“Crowley?” 

Crowley snapped his head back out of sight and nearly tripped over himself in his haste to blend in and then get out of the crowd. Jesus wasn’t supposed to remember him, let alone recognize him after six or seven years away! Great job, Crowley, great idea coming back here, real smooth, you blew it, now he’s going to tell Aziraphale and it’s back to the pits with you, and maybe you’ll finally find out for yourself whether Satan is actually more of a sadist than Dagon. Or maybe you’ll get lucky and get to experience the kind of smiting that one doesn’t come back from.

The holy presence was all around him, thick in the air, and he suddenly doubted his ability to outrun Jesus without making a scene. As soon as he was out of sight of the crowds, Crowley shifted into his serpent form and slithered up the roof access of a nearby home, looking for a place to hide. 

“Crowley, wait,” Jesus commanded gently, from behind him. 

“Wait, your old friend is a _snake?_” came another voice. “Of course. I should have known.”

Crowley turned to peer down from the edge of the roof, and hissed with all the menace he could muster. 

“Crowley, it’s me,” Jesus insisted, frowning. “Don’t you remember me?”

“You sure it’s the same snake?” mumbled one of the sturdier boys, as if afraid of offending Jesus with the suggestion. 

“No, I definitely….” Jesus hesitated, still staring up at Crowley with furrowed brow. He closed his mouth and opened it again. “I definitely know this snake.”

“Well it’s clearly not so sure about you,” the other boy laughed. 

“Leave it alone, Jesus,” said the string-bean nervously. “Come on, let’s go get some grapes.”

The other short one grinned. “You just want to go over there because the girl selling them is pretty.”

“Do not! Ew. _You _do. I just want grapes.”

“I _know_ that’s my friend Crowley,” Jesus mumbled half to himself. 

_Friend?_ Crowley’s scales shivered as he contracted in confused surprise. 

“It’s just a snake. Even if it made friends with you once, it probably doesn’t remember you. How long ago were you even hanging around with it?”

“Uh….” Jesus thought for a moment. “I was little. Six or seven. So about seven years ago.” 

“Do snakes even live that long? There’s no way it’s the same one.” 

“But this isn’t—he’s not actually a snake, he just looks like one.” 

An uneasy silence fell on the group, the three other boys glancing at each other. 

“Crazy,” one of them finally barked teasingly, and nudged Jesus with his elbow. 

“Never mind,” Jesus sighed. “You guys wouldn’t get it.” 

“Yeah, you’re probably right about that. Now come on—what would you do anyway, climb up there and try to pick it up? That’s way too dangerous. Come on, come on!” 

At the insistent coaxing of his friends, Jesus allowed himself to be led away by one arm, though his head stayed turned back toward Crowley for nearly ten paces. 

Thank God—no, They probably had nothing to do with this. Thank… someone. 

The relief came tinged with regret (best not to look too deeply into_ that_). After several minutes, Crowley slithered down and began to head out of town. He had pushed his luck too far already, and it was a wonder he hadn’t run into any other demons yet, let alone angels; clearly Jesus was doing alright now, and Aziraphale had things well in hand. 

It was slow going as a snake, looking for somewhere discreet to transform back. Too many feet, too many eyes, too few isolated spaces large enough to accommodate an adult-sized human shape shifting back into existence. Crowley had to lurk in the shadows a good deal more than he wanted to bother doing, but he made it nearly to the edge of town without being noticed by more than two startled humans. Just as he was about to slide into the shadow of a well, the hurried slap of sandaled feet vibrated through his belly and skidded to a halt in front of him.

“Crowley, it’s me! I know it’s you.” Jesus was panting a little as he crouched down, and Crowley wished, not for the first time, that slithering backward was not such a near-impossible feat. Every instinct inside him told him not to turn his back on this veritable beacon of holy power. So he hissed yet again, and coiled in on himself. 

Jesus flinched back, then frowned as if Crowley had just said something rude to him. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

There was a slim chance that Jesus could be tricked into doubting himself, and Crowley took it by staying silent, swaying very slightly as he stared at that imperfect, beautiful, and so very human face framed by haphazard coils of curls stuck together. 

Jesus’ voice and face both fell. “Are you mad at me?” 

_What? _It came out before Crowley could stop it, and he groaned internally at himself for getting so easily caught off guard. He shouldn’t have been so quick to break his speechless-animal act.

“I didn’t _want _you to go. I’m really glad to see you again, too. Where have you been, anyway?” 

Crowley turned his head a little, dared to look around for an escape route, but instead some treacherous part of his mind seized upon the fact that no one else was looking, and soon he was unfolding from the ground by the well to sit on the rim of it. Play it casual, he told himself. 

“Oh,” Jesus said softly, in the kind of voice that made Crowley’s stomach drop, and his eyes too, looking for some evidence on his own body of some ugly mark which might make Jesus sound like that. But the leech-sores were gone by now, as far as he could see. “You’re… what did they… what happened?”

“Uh, nothing, hi, what’s—nn, how’s it going? Sorry, I’m not supposed to be here. The hissing was—that’s why, just passing through—”

“Why’d you go back there for so long if it hurts so much?” Jesus’ voice was more tender and heavy than any 14-year-old’s had a right to be. 

Crowley’s stammering stumbled right off a cliff, and he stared at his toes. “Back wh—ghk—wh—i….ngk.” He drew a sharp breath and growled through his teeth. “Didn’t really… choose to. Anyway, why d’you wanna know? It’s a good thing, isn’t it, evil getting punished.” 

“You mean someone forced you to go? I thought Aziraphale just told you to stay away from me.”

The name of the angel hurt like a toothache, memories of that blinding-dawn gaze echoing judgment on his soul. The boy had called him friend, had asked why he’d gone, as if he’d missed him, as if his childhood naiveté had somehow stuck even after knowing what Crowley was. But that was impossible. Yet despite the humiliation that no doubt awaited, Crowley couldn’t quite find the strength to care much what resulted from telling the truth.

“Doesn’t matter,” Crowley mumbled, weakly shrugging one shoulder. “Couldn’t do what they wanted me to do. Hell’s hell. ‘sjust how it goes.” He cleared his throat, tensely tasting the air for any sign of Aziraphale or any other supernatural entity drawing too close. The angel was everywhere, subtly, almost unnoticeable _because _of being so ubiquitous. 

“What who wanted you to do?”

“Hell.” _Stop talking_, his mind screamed at him. _Get away before anyone else sees_. “Anyway. Like I said. Better be moving on before—” 

“They wanted you to kill me, right?” Jesus sounded so nonchalant about it that Crowley accidentally looked up at him, and bless it all, the godspawn’s mouth was quirked in a resigned smile that felt all too familiar for no reason Crowley wanted to think about. 

Hope swelled traitorous and dangerous as a flash flood cutting underneath a fragile riverbank, but he couldn’t give in to it—that kind of hope was how torture truly broke you. 

“So you weren’t lying,” Jesus went on, “when you said you weren’t going to hurt me? And you _were_ lying when you told the other demons you had a plan.”

“Iiiiehhh….” Crowley creaked and began to give, like an old collapsing barn. “I had a plan… to try and convince them I was corrupting you, so they’d leave you alone, but it turned out you’re too important. So… I failed and hell doesn’t like failures. Funny since that’s a prerequisite for the job, if you really think about it, I mean, demons are just failed angels after—after all.” 

“You should come back to God,” said Jesus.

He may as well have hit Crowley in the face with a boulder. 

Jesus’ hopeful tone only increased; he seemed to misinterpret Crowley’s agonized facial expression. “I’m just thinking you don’t seem like you belong in hell.”

“I don’t,” Crowley hissed out through clenched teeth. 

“So you should go back to work for God instead. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about what the other demons want you to do, and we could be friends again. And Aziraphale would believe you were good.” 

“Oh, sure, I’ll just walk right back up to the pearly gates and knock on them, shall I?” _Stop talking stop talkingstoptalking._ Words spilled bitterly out of him, his voice hoarse from lack of use other than screaming. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but heaven’s an exclusive club, and once they’ve tossed you out, you don’t get a second chance. You don’t get to go back and say, _hey, past is past, I’ll make it up to you,_ not even if you beg, not even if—ghhhk, if you never wanted to be a demon—not cut out for it, never really got into the whole murder and corruption thing, can’t even—guhgh, but I don’t belong in heaven either, they’ve got just as much—ngk, it’s fine, forget it. Can’t. No point.” 

For all Crowley’s dread over the effect his words might have on Jesus, the son of God seemed remarkably unshaken. Instead, head bowed slightly, holding one arm with the other crossed over his body, he had the look of someone trying to figure out a particularly challenging puzzle. 

“That’s not right.”

“Oh but it _is_, I’m telling you—I’ve tried.” Crowley’s voice threatened to break, and he clamped his mouth shut. 

Jesus shook his head. “No, I mean… if it’s true, that’s not how it _should _be.”

“Good luck trying to convince the Almighty of that.” 

“I bet I could,” Jesus said. 

Crowley gaped at him. The audacity of it all sent a deep plunging fear through his stomach, walloped by the thought of how much of a certain angel (no longer existent) was packed into those four words. He’d never seen it coming, his fall from grace. He’d been so confident in God’s love, in God’s reason… convinced that there actually _was_ a reason for everything. 

And then the next thought burst out of him before he’d fully formed it in his mind “B—h—why would you? I’m….”

“Because you’re my friend,” said Jesus, and while Crowley was still staggering from that particular blow, he added: “And you’d be a much better angel than a demon, I think.”

An odd sound broke from Crowley’s throat. A strangled groan that turned into a laugh of disbelief—better that than the other choppy exhale that was burning as it lay in wait behind his collarbone. 

“Pretty sure God disagrees with you there. And I—besides, I only knew you for… what… like, a week? A month?” Crowley’s voice crackled like brittle grass getting stomped on. “You don’t know what I’m like.”

“Was it really only that long?” Jesus frowned. “Anyway, mama said you took care of me as a baby, too. So either you love me—” Crowley’s teeth clicked sharply together at that word “—or you’re trying to hurt me like all the other demons, just in a more sneaky way. You didn’t seem like you wanted to hurt me, back then. And you got in trouble for it. So I’m hoping that means you are actually my friend after all.”

“Khff. What d’you want to be friends with a demon for anyway?” Crowley cried. “Plenty of humans around to make friends with. I don’t think your heavenly parent would approve any more than your earthly ones did.”

“Well, actually….” It was nearly a sigh, and Jesus’ posture shifted a little, his frown turning inward as he sat down beside Crowley on the lip of the well. “I don’t have that many real friends. Most people don’t really like how different I am. Even Aziraphale doesn’t like to talk to me about certain things, because he says he’s not _authorized_ to disclose any details about what I’m supposed to do beyond what’s been written in the scriptures. You’re the only person who actually makes me think. You’re the only person I know choosing to be better than they’re ‘supposed’ to be! Why would God waste you on doing evil when it’s obviously not in your nature?”

“My nature?” Crowley scoffed out another pained laugh, looking up and away from Jesus. “My nature is one big cosmic joke.”

“Or maybe you’re here with me right now for a reason.” Jesus shifted, stretching out his gangly adolescent legs in front of him. “Why did you come back?”

Crowley kept the grumble of discomfort muffled in the back of his throat. Why, indeed? “Shouldn’t have. Shouldn’t be here.”

“I wasn’t asking if you should or shouldn’t, I’m asking why you did.” Jesus voice was calm and unstoppable as the Nile.

Crowley gulped and thought. Because he felt guilty leaving Jesus and Aziraphale to the mercy of other demons? Because he hoped that cursed hope which Jesus was now dangling in front of him, possibly not even realizing how cruel it was to do so? Because some part of him wanted to stop existing? 

“Curious,” he finally muttered, after clearing his throat. “I guess. Had to find out what happened. Lots of demons trying to murder you, then?”

“Aziraphale usually makes pretty short work of them,” Jesus said quietly, his mouth flattening into a grim line. He folded his hands between his knees.

“You’d think they’d learn to be more subtle,” Crowley said lightly, even as his body went cold at the thought of the soft-edged angel smiting dozens of demons without batting an eye. He gripped the gritty edge of the well. “…I should go.”

“Already? You just got here! Don’t be afraid. If you tell him that you want to work for good, I don’t think he would hurt you.” Jesus’ voice turned pleading. “I think he even regrets what he said a little bit, especially because you actually disappeared for all this time after that. He hasn’t been nearly as happy since you left.” 

A noise of disbelief came out more as a pained cough. Aziraphale was a walking pile of misplaced regret, he told himself. Didn’t mean anything. Couldn’t. “Why should he believe me? Demons lie all the time.”

“Because you’re different. You said yourself you don’t belong in hell.”

Crowley’s protests died, caught out by his own unconscious confession. “Don’t belong in heaven either,” was all he could squeeze out, and that under his breath, ashamed at the self-pity. “Don’t belong anywhere.” 

“That’s not true.” 

When Crowley took too long bludgeoning the idiotic hope that Jesus’ words were trying to resurrect, Jesus shifted to face him more fully, and leaned forward just a little.

“At the very least, Aziraphale should know that—”

“Please,” Crowley hissed. “Don’t tell him. Don’t even tell him I was here.”

“Why not?” 

“He already told me twice not to come back. He’ll just think if I’m here, I’m up to no good. Just _being_ here is evidence that my intentions are… ngk….”

“But I could convince him. I’m sure I could.”

So confident. 

“I don’t intend to stay anyway,” Crowley muttered, and cleared his throat. “Seems you’re both doing fine and I’ve—”

“Where are you going to go?” 

“You know, got other… assignments and….” 

Running short of things to say, and dangerously close to falling back into that tired old cycle of_ just a moment more, maybe something good will come of this, maybe maybe maybe_, Crowley pushed himself to stand. 

“Wait, you’re leaving right—?” 

Crowley smelled it and heard it before he felt it—the sizzle and scent of burning flesh, and then, the scream wrenching his jaw open and bursting his lungs as his arm, the one closest to Jesus, turned to coals of agony, a white-hot flood arcing back into his spine, pulsing through every nerve like his own bones had sprouted needles.

The blood drained from Jesus’ face and the teenager cried out too, stumbling back, words an incomprehensible mishmash of shock, and Crowley had barely drawn breath from the first scream before another broke from him—his hand, he’d tried to cover the wound with it, and the burn spread into his fingertips like acid.

Crowley clenched his fist and ran, blinded, eyes swimming with such heat that he wondered if his blood were actually boiling and running down his face now. He stumbled and kept on, realizing too late that he had darted back into the city, colliding with walls and carts and bins of refuse, desperate as a rabbit from a fox, until his foot snagged on something and he well and truly fell, writhing on the street.

Limbs disappeared, and Crowley deliriously thought of a certain terrified skink who had shed her tail. He curled and seized like that discarded tail, spitting and hissing, a whip bruising itself against the walls, crawling up them and falling back until his head found darkness and dampness, and the rest of him followed it further, deeper, deeper, until the cool of water enveloped him and he quivered there, beyond thought, waiting for the smoldering to stop spreading, or for his soul to go extinct. 


	11. Chapter 11

Thought came back slowly, in painful pulses.

Jesus had touched his arm. Crowley finally pieced together enough of what he’d seen and felt to become aware of that fact. The mere touch had done this, had set his being—not just his body—aflame with holiness, and Crowley could not bear it, but he was forced to bear it nonetheless.

A moth, singed legs curled up around its belly in the corner of the floor. He just had to wait long enough, and it would all be over. But every second felt like an hour. Crowley’s mind spun through possibilities of cutting it all short. He could go back and beg Jesus to finish it all properly, to burn him faster, embrace him until he crumbled to ash in his arms, but Crowley couldn’t bring himself to move, waking from hallucinations that he had done so only to find himself still in the dark, surrounded by the essence of his own slow extermination.

It was spreading. 

What had begun as a patch in his middle now covered two-thirds of his length, and Crowley couldn’t have breathed properly even if he wanted to, even if he’d poked his head above water—his respiratory system was out of order, a single inhale acting like a bellows until sparks flew from his teeth and illuminated the warm clay of the water-jar he’d fallen into.

_Please_, he thought at the burning spreading toward his skull, unable to force himself to choose greater momentary pain for the reward of oblivion. _Please hurry._

He began to imagine things. Conversations wheeled through his head, images so vivid he thought he was there, back in Eden, in heaven, in the torrential rain meant to wipe out all the life within thousands of miles of one waiting boat. Was this what people meant by their life flashing before their eyes? It was a good deal less orderly than Crowley had imagined, scenes from heaven and hell bleeding together in ways that shouldn’t have made any sense. Gabriel was Dagon was Aziraphale was Mary, drinking wine, drinking stars, plucking grapes from constellations and crushing them into the blood of humans, of lambs, when they turned into the fruit from The Tree. A flaming sword was propped up on a bracket on the wall in Khnumet’s study, and Crowley reached for it to bring a little more light to the table, even knowing it was sharp enough to cleave him in two should he misstep. Someone was calling his name, intermittently at first, an eddy in the storm that rolled him over and over… then insistently, bringing him back into the dark. 

“Crowley, please, say something. I know you’re in there.” It was distorted by the water, but he could still make out the words.

Oh, great. Now he was hallucinating the angel, and imagining him sounding so concerned, too. Pitiful, really, for his mind to do this to him. 

“I suppose I can’t blame you for being angry with me, but you know I _do _have some experience with the methods of demons.”

What was he nattering on about? Crowley wished the water blocked the sound more effectively, but it was only amplified by the walls of the water jar. _Leave me alone_, he thought.

But he must have thought it a bit too loud, because there was a pregnant pause above him, and Aziraphale’s tone shifted. “I told Jesus you wouldn’t want me to help you… but I couldn’t very well say no when he commanded me. Not that… not that I… well, if I say it like that it makes it sound as if I didn’t want to come at all, but it’s not exactly—look, see here, it’s very difficult to explain myself when I’m not even sure you’re listening. And besides that, people are going to start wondering if I’ve gone mad if I stand here much longer.”

The other images and voices had stopped bleeding into each other, and now it was only this: Aziraphale’s voice above him; warm, earth-and-sun-colored ripples all around him; the burn creeping toward his head. What was the angel doing here?

“Crowley….” The angel sighed mournfully. “I suppose there’s nothing else for it.” The ripples shifted, the water sloshing violently around as the jar moved. Even just the movement of water against his scales brought Crowley close to blacking out with pain. But then it settled a bit, and he realized the thing was being _carried._

This couldn’t be real. The angel didn’t even know his name, not his new name, and even if Jesus had told him, why would he use it? He was being carried away to be finished off, surely. He didn’t even have the energy to be afraid.

“I do hope whoever this belongs to doesn’t notice it missing for a short time,” Aziraphale fretted. “I’ll have to be sure to clean it out and fill it back up once you’ve been removed. It is quite a lot of water, and you know how precious water is in these parts.” 

Removed. Yeah. So the angel was going to take him out, in the final sense of the word. Crowley’s coiled body rocked gently—excruciatingly—against the sides of the jar with the sloshing of the water. Why did it have to be the angel—his angel—of all beings? Dagon’s torments he could bear, because they were expected, because he knew Dagon’s nature. But to be destroyed by a creature so seemingly kind and pure as Aziraphale….

“If you want to know the truth, I came not just because he commanded me. It’s… been bothering me. The way we parted. And not just because I’ve had to work so much harder since then… I really don’t_ like _smiting. But the point is, I wondered, when you were gone so… so utterly… what it all meant. It didn’t truly feel… resolved.” 

Crowley heard the words, but he had no energy to try and work out what they meant.

“Oh, this is going nowhere.” Aziraphale blew out another agitated breath, and the scent of him wafted down into the pot, sank through the surface of the water, and Crowley couldn’t bear it. “I’ll just have to ask straight out. Jesus said he talked with you and you seemed to have been put through some great torment for failing to harm him, and that you wanted to be rid of hell. Is that true?”

Crowley lay still, trying to minimize his movement as much as possible. Why try to explain himself? It had never helped before. It would only postpone the inevitable.

The light shifted above him, and for a moment, the rocking motion stopped. He heard Aziraphale muttering something to himself indecisively. Then the angel cleared his throat. “Right. Two birds with one stone, actually.” 

And then they were moving again, at a faster pace. 

Aziraphale walked and walked, for long enough that Crowley thought the angel had settled on slosh-and-burn as the favored method of torturous extinction. Just as Crowley was about to gather himself in one last desperate bid for freedom so he could actually die with some kind of dignity left, the jar was set down and tipped on its side, drawing a sputtering hiss from him as the water drained out from around him, leaving only the shallowest pool within.

“Won’t you come out, Crowley? There’s no one around, now. It’s just the two of us.”

Crowley shuddered at the coaxing tone. Sure, come out, it’s just the two of us, no one to hear or see you scream….

_Leave me alone._

“If that’s really what you want, I will, but only once you’ve let me heal you. I just want to help.”

_Not falling for that._

“I beg your pardon?”

_I’d rather be burned to ash than trust you just to have you throw me out again._

“Crowley…!” Aziraphale sounded scandalized. “It was never Jesus’ intention to harm you. Nor mine. Surely you know that.”

_Let’s just get it over with. Don’t bother pretending you’re going to fix me. You can’t. Nothing you do can fix me._

“Nonsense. I’m sure I could at least lessen the damage.”

The damage. Crowley withdrew tighter into his broken body, but the ugliness of that was nothing compared to the shape of his soul. _Even if you heal my body, it won’t change anything._

“I won’t let you die.”

Dread corroded his many ribs, Aziraphale’s voice blending with Dagon’s. They would keep him alive, keep him from escaping the suffering that was always waiting for him.

Birds called from the world outside the narrow mouth of the water jar, hazy caws and trills seeming half-imagined. A world he’d never deserved to walk through, a world that had never actually belonged to him, though he’d dared to enjoy it while he could. Crowley thought of flying, and knew he would never spread his wings again. 

He could see a small circle of earth and dry grass, a grayish smudge that could have been a tree-root. Beyond the threatening scent of holiness and its smoldering victim, there was another scent that Crowley couldn’t quite place.

“Please come out. I don’t want to have to break this jar to retrieve you.”

_Yeah. Would be a real shame, breaking an innocent inanimate object in the process of breaking a demon. _A random human’s possession would be worth so much more care than a demon’s life. Of course it would.

“Really.” Aziraphale huffed. “I’m not under any orders to hurt or destroy you, I promise. Quite the opposite.” 

_Why would I believe that? We’re enemies… as you so often remind me._

“But we don’t have to hurt each other!” Aziraphale sounded exasperated. “Jesus certainly never meant to, surely you know that.”

_Just forget about me. It’s what your side is good at. I’m leaving anyway, so you won’t have to worry about thwarting me anymore._

“Leaving?” Aziraphale’s voice dropped suddenly in volume. “But… where are you going to go?”

_Away. Somewhere far away from you. _Somewhere he could face extinction without the hovering of this cruel hope, where he could try to convince himself that he had chosen this, that he wasn’t completely helpless to choose his own end. Please, angel, he pleaded silently, not quite to the point of begging in any way that could be heard. Let me go.

“Do you… hate me?” Bless it all, the angel had the audacity to sound _hurt_.

And Crowley’s heart had the audacity to say _No!_ before he could stop it. Frantically he tried to inject a heavy dose of sarcasm. _How could anyone ever hate an angel, or blame one for hurting them? God’s punishments have to be just, after all. Anything an angel does is right._

“I hurt you,” Aziraphale murmured. “When I… I forced you back to hell to be… tormented.”

_Nah, love being tormented. Perfect holiday, really works out the knots. Real relaxing when all you can do is lie there and take it._

“Oh Crowley… I’m sorry,” the angel whispered, and Crowley’s whole body flinched. 

No no no. He couldn’t take that. 

_Don’t, _he warned, unable to bear meaningless apologies.

“But I am,” Aziraphale insisted. “I _do _regret the way things—I wish it hadn’t—I wish_ I_ hadn’t handled things the way I did, but you see, I was beginning to think… I wanted to think you were harmless, and perhaps I was—”

_I’m not harmless, _Crowley hissed. Demons couldn’t help but harm. It was his nature, no matter what he tried. Road to hell, paved with good intentions, wasn’t it? Paved thick and walled on both sides, in his case.

“—I….” Aziraphale hesitated, then pressed on. “I wondered if I trusted you too easily. We both had our assignments, after all, and….”

_And that’s exactly why we can never trust each other. _

“But Jesus believes you—he—he loves you.” 

Crowley’s body contracted and shuddered, his whole being a knot full of smaller knots, straining in agony against one another.

“And he only wishes good for you, and I can’t help but hope from the bottom of my heart that good is possible.”

_It isn’t,_ Crowley said in a quiet strangled hiss, aching._ I’m barely a person, anyway._

“No!” Aziraphale protested. And then, quieter but more firmly. “No. You are a person, Crowley… at least as much of a person as I am….” A pause, and when the angel spoke again, it was soft with vulnerability. “You seem at least to follow your own path… whenever possible.”

_To what end? _His own path had led to dead ends, over and over again. Hell wasn’t a map of twisted roads. It was a maze without an exit. 

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale said helplessly.

_God made sure all roads lead to suffering, for us. I don’t know what the point of any of this is. I’m done._

There was a long pause, and Crowley wondered if Aziraphale had finally accepted the bitter truth. But then the angel spoke again, confused and sad, as if half to himself. “There must be more than that… otherwise, why would Jesus be as he is? This can’t be merely a… an object lesson in cruelty to the opposition….” He trailed off faintly, the doubt heavy.

_Don’t kid yourself. You and him were… some of the few things that made me forget how awful everything else is, but then God slapped my hand away from that too. That’s the point. Intentional. It’s not for me to forget. _

He heard Aziraphale take a deep, slow breath above him. “I… I don’t know how to make sense of it all either, but… that doesn’t change that I would like to heal you before you go.”

_Stop this, angel. If you’re going to insist on staying, the least you can do is finish me off. But you have to really do it. I can’t go back to hell. _Here he was after all, begging, the wretch. _And—and just think, _he added, frantically grasping for some semblance of composure, _you’d probably earn a commendation for destroying me. So at least some good would—_

“Oh no, Crowley,” Aziraphale cried, his voice breaking. “I couldn’t—I could never. Please, I can’t bear the thought.”

That silenced him. Crowley lay still in the water, watching the tiny ripples of light cast against the lip of it, wondering if he’d imagined the pain in the angel’s voice. Nothing made any sense.

“Perhaps that’s foolish of me,” Aziraphale murmured, and Crowley heard him take a deep, slow breath. “But it’s the truth. Please….” His voice was so tender, so tentative. “Please before you go, let me heal you.” 

So relentless, his angel. Crowley realized he could sit here arguing until he burned into nothing, or he could give in. One way or the other, he would have to face the angel’s true intentions, whatever they might be.

He unfolded slowly, every inch of the burn screaming at him as he moved toward the mouth of the jar. Surely just a touch from someone as holy as Aziraphale would finish him off now. One way or another, this pain had to end. 

The glint of dappled sunlight on the puddle Aziraphale had poured out hurt his eyes as he came creeping out headfirst, and slowly let his length coalesce into human shape. He took in one glance of Aziraphale, kneeling prayer-like beside the vessel nearly as large as he was, and quickly looked away, offering his smoldering arm and telling himself he’d only imagined the shine of tears in the angel’s hazel eyes.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale gasped, “this is more terrible than I imagined; it must be so painful.”

In the dappled shade of a tree, he reached for Crowley’s arm and Crowley forced himself to watch, to be fully aware of these last moments of his existence. It would be a mercy, he told himself, for everything to end. An ache unfurled inside him deep as a canyon in the face of that mercy, the only mercy allowed to him, the only thing like love extended from heaven that he could experience now. How lucky humans were, to go back to God when their lives were through. Was it such a hopeless thing to wish, to feel some kind of love one last time?

Aziraphale’s fingers touched the burn like icy shards, and Crowley flinched, closed his eyes, waiting. If the last thing he ever felt was the touch of an angel, well….

“This was just a terrible accident,” Aziraphale murmured, sounding pained. “It was never Jesus’ intention to hurt you.”

“I know that.” How could he speak when his lungs had been turned to coals? He drew a deep breath, wondering if it was still throwing sparks and he was just beyond feeling it. “Maybe God’s though.”

The angel’s hand was moving slowly, tenderly over his arm and side. Crowley dared to open his eyes, to watch those fingers siphoning flame away into their tips—the angel lifted one hand away to wipe surreptitiously at—sweat, Crowley told himself. Sweat in the angel’s eyes. Did angels sweat? Aziraphale’s face was screwed up in distress, biting his lip, brow furrowed deeply. Was it hurting him to touch a demon for this long?

“Why are you doing this?” Crowley whispered in the same moment he realized the burn _was_ actually shrinking.

“I….” Aziraphale groaned, voice and fingers quaking with frustration. “I can’t help it, you just….” His hand came up again, and he touched the moisture at his eye. “You don’t feel like one. You don’t feel like an enemy in this moment….” He gave a shaky, choked-off, self-deprecating breath of a laugh. “I’m really not a very good angel, I’m afraid.”

“But…” Crowley protested, thinking of the righteous fury he’d witnessed, of the burning eyes and blood-soaked spear, “even if you don’t see me as an enemy now….”

“It’s all so confusing. I don’t understand. There’s so much I wish could be different… and… perhaps I’m terribly wrong about all of it, but I still… I still _wish_….” He sniffed and stopped speaking, struggling for composure.

Crowley’s voice softened. “Why are you crying, angel….”

“Oh, don’t pay it any mind,” Aziraphale tried to laugh and sniffed wetly, his voice quivering and falsely light as he wiped his wet hand on his front and bent even further toward his task. “Anyway, you don’t… don’t want to listen to an angel’s inner blathering, I should be concentrating on the task at hand. Don’t distract me.”

Crowley stared at him, dumbfounded as the angel worked, both hands occupied now in drawing out the burn. The pain lessened moment by moment, and Crowley watched an unattended tear make its slow way to the tip of Aziraphale’s quivering chin. He watched the angel’s body for any sign of damage, but there was none. As the blackened, glowing burn shrank to a mere redness on his skin, Crowley realized the angel’s touch didn’t really hurt. Well, relatively.

Something swelled in his chest, filling up the spaces left hollowed out by the pain, and he was about to open his mouth to let it out when the angel sat back, sniffed one last time, and flashed him a sad smile. 

“There… thank you.” 

“Thank you?” Crowley echoed in confusion, staring him helplessly in the eyes.

“For trusting me, for just this moment. I hope… wherever you go next….” Aziraphale’s mouth trembled at the edges. “Life will be kinder.” 

Crowley just stared, speechless. The angel looked so sad. 

“I’ll… well….” Another tear escaped, and Aziraphale brushed at it hurriedly, struggled to regain his composure. “I hope our paths will cross again and things will make sense someday… perhaps that’s foolish of me too.” He gave a tearful laugh. “What kind of angel… but you’re not a typical demon either, are you?”

Crowley waited for the angel to get up and leave him behind. But neither of them moved, just looking at each other. Crowley brushed his own fingers along his arm, marveling at the restored skin, nerves, bone and muscle, and his mind took the kindness offered to him and turned it over and over, trying to make sense of it while Aziraphale pasted on different smiles and finished drying his eyes.

Crowley let his eyes slip down to the ground and finally realized what the other scent was. Round, rosy-colored fruits were scattered all around them, some of them shriveled, some half-eaten, others fresh and split open from their impact with the earth. 

Crowley tilted his head back and looked up at the clusters of fruit above his head, growing close to the spreading, knobbly branches. 

“It’s a sycomore,” Crowley breathed to himself. Did the angel even realize the irony? Around the roots, the water that had spilled from the jar seemed, if anything, to have spread into a much bigger puddle than it should have. 

“It’s your tree,” said Aziraphale.

“What?” Crowley swayed to his feet in the mud, one hand still braced against his healed arm. “Is that some kind of joke?” 

“No,” Aziraphale frowned up at him, perplexed. “Why would I joke about that?”

“My tree would be long dead by now, given where I planted—this isn’t where I planted it at all,” Crowley noted, turning in a circle and realizing their proximity to Nazareth. Sepphoris was still a long way off. 

“Well, I may have… moved it, a bit, to make it easier to care for,” Aziraphale mumbled at the laced fingers in his lap.

“Moved it?” Crowley put his hand against the tree’s trunk and stared in shock as the knowledge set in. Yes, it was the same tree. “Why?” 

“Because, just as you said, it would have died if left alone out there.” Aziraphale wasn’t looking at him now. “Now it’s much closer to Nazareth, and I don’t spend as much time in Sepphoris these days. Too busy, er… you know.”

“That’s not what I meant, obviously! I meant why would you care for it in the first place?”

“Well I… I suppose I felt… some measure of….” Aziraphale trailed off, visibly reconsidered, and finally got to his feet as well, clearing his throat and straightening his clothes. “Right. I did expect you would be back eventually. And I—it just seemed the right thing to do.”

“The right thing to do? You… cast me out, and then took care of my tree for years? I don’t understand you.”

“Well.” Aziraphale cleared his throat and averted his eyes, hands clasped tightly in front of him. “I suppose you’ve got to be off on your way now. Is there, a…anything you’d like me to tell Jesus for you?”

Words crowded in Crowley’s throat, resulting in a sputtering cough more than any actual syllables. He was completely unmoored. “_Go away_ Crowley, come back Crowley, _oops time for you to go now_—what—what—what do you actually want me to do?!”

“It’s not about what_ I_ want,” said Aziraphale impatiently. “You said _you_ wanted to leave.”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?” 

“You mean you want to stay?” 

Crowley opened his mouth to answer, but stopped, caught by a flicker of something unexpected in Aziraphale’s expression. No, he must have imagined it. There was no reason for the angel to look _hopeful._

They stood there too long in the speckled shade of a tree that shouldn’t have survived, breathing in the scent of its fruit. Oh, just to breathe again without pain. It was delicious. Crowley quivered with something dangerously close to joy. But there was, actually, still pain… it was always there, waiting.

“Do you want me to stay?” Crowley dared to ask. He knew the answer would be no. He just had to hear it, to put that hope to rest.

Aziraphale sighed, looking downcast. “Even if I did, I suppose it wouldn’t be safe for you, would it.”

“Safer than somewhere else,” Crowley muttered.

“Oh?”

Crowley gave the smallest of nods. “If I go, I would want to find some way to… make it permanent.”

“Then you _must_ stay!” Aziraphale cried.

“To ease your misguided conscience?” Crowley sighed, leaning against the tree and gazing up to its crown. It had grown to be so beautiful already. The angel had taken good care of it. The sight filled Crowley with the same bittersweet bewilderment he’d felt upon first meeting a human child in all their messy, brilliant, irrational glory. “You should be happy. One less demon in the universe. One less bit of weight on the wrong side of the scale.”

The angel, strangely, only seemed to draw more determination from this, standing a little taller, a little firmer than before, his eyes unflinching. “Jesus said you wanted to be free of hell. Is that true?” 

“Wanting doesn’t make a difference,” Crowley half-whispered at the gaps in the leaves above him, exhausted. 

“But if ever there were a time in history where such things could change, it’s now.” Aziraphale’s voice was quiet, fervent. “He’s the son of God, Crowley. Surely his opinion of you counts for something, in the grand scheme of things. You should at least come back with me to talk to him.”

It was absurd. It was impossible. It was everything Crowley had been a fool for, and he took a deep, long breath and let it out, shaking his head. 

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were terrible at this whole thwarting thing,” Crowley joked weakly. 

“Well, you’re not a bad demon yourself,” Aziraphale replied. “Now, you look like you could use a bit of a lie-down. Shall we go see if we can reclaim your old quarters in Sepphoris?” 

Still trying to work out just what kind of _bad _Aziraphale thought he wasn’t, Crowley watched the angel snap his fingers and send the water jar back where it belonged, and at his expectant look, Crowley followed him out from under the shade toward the nearest road. 

Halfway, a random thought struck him and he glanced back over his shoulder. 

“So. Wasps?” he asked.

Aziraphale’s confusion lasted only a moment before dissolving into a smile. “Loads and loads of them.”

“Huh,” Crowley said skeptically. “Not a single fruit ungashed?”

“Well… I may have tasted one or two,” Aziraphale confessed in a guilty undertone. “But how else was I to know if I was raising the tree properly?” 

Crowley just shook his head again, a tired, helpless grin plucking at the corner of his mouth. “So how were they?”

“You can find out for yourself.”

“I told you, I’m not eating any.”

“Oh you are impossible!”

Impossible. Seemed a good word for everything that had just happened, everything he hoped for. Crowley wondered just how impossible he actually was.

…

It was a quiet walk back to Sepphoris. Angel and demon, each lost in their own thoughts, walked side by side, careful not to accidentally tread too close and brush hands or rub shoulders—at least after the first time it happened (“Oh, excuse me” “Whoops, didn’t mean to”).

But that was the curious thing. Crowley’s physical pain was gone, from the torments, from the burn, and so there was no background pulse of it to obscure the zap of Aziraphale’s touch. It should have hurt. It didn’t hurt. Not really.

It hurt in the way warm water stings a bit when your hands are half frozen. Or in the way ice hurts when pressed on bare skin for too long. He’d have to thank Dagon if he ever saw him again (the thought alone made his spine cringe), for building up such a good pain tolerance in Crowley’s physical form.

Silly, inconsequential thoughts like this passed over Crowley’s mind as they walked, because there was too much to process in what had just happened. Too much uncertain, even now. The only thing that had truly changed, he told himself, was a sense of possibility, of space for the unknown—moving from _damned forever_ to _damned indefinitely_, which might not be much better, but it certainly didn’t feel worse.

Actually, the thing Crowley’s mind kept going back to was the tears. The memory of them hung in the silence between the two beings, and Crowley wondered if Aziraphale was thinking of them too, and if he was ashamed. 

Satan help him, he needed to think of something to break the ice. 

“Soo…” Crowley started. “Uh… ‘sit just you all this time or have you had any help?”

“What? Oh. Just me. I suppose I could have had some humans water it too, but—”

“Water? What? No, not the tree, the—the assignment!” Crowley snorted in amazement. “Guarding the Messiah. Smiting demons. How many is it now?”

“I’ve… rather lost count,” Aziraphale said shyly. 

“On your own?” Crowley tilted his head and pursed his lips in sympathy.

“Well, other than once or twice, it hasn’t really been necessary to call in reinforcements. And now Jesus is… clearly becoming more powerful by the day.” The angel’s eyes flicked toward Crowley’s arm and away—Crowley would have missed it if he’d blinked. “Very soon he may not even have need of me.”

“Mgh.” Crowley wasn’t ready to talk about Jesus. Not yet. He touched the arm he’d nearly lost, and then forced both arms to swing casually at his sides. “And you thought I was talking about the tree. Bit preoccupied, eh?”

“Well, you see, it’s become sort of a routine for me now, taking care of it, so it’s going to be a bit of an adjustment….”

“Alright, you can keep it.”

“Keep it? You mean you don’t want it?” 

Crowley mentally kicked himself. Ungrateful little prick, he was. “No, no, I—great, lovely tree, glorious job you’ve done raising it. I just thought… well, who knows how long I’ll—”

“Who knows how long _I’ll_ be in the area, for that matter,” Aziraphale broke in, somehow fierce and prim at the same time. “It’s your tree and it’s only right that you stick around long enough to see it well established.”

Crowley looked away, fighting the urge to stare at the angel. The fear in Aziraphale’s voice was unmistakable—was he really still concerned about Crowley’s life, about Crowley finding reasons to continue? The thought swelled tight in his chest.

It began to shift something in him. He thought of how Jesus had spoken of the isolation, the price of being different. 

“Angel… you must be pretty popular with the rest of the heavenly host, to have a job like this.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t put it that way,” Aziraphale muttered softly at the ground, fiddling with the little ring on his pinky finger. 

“Come on,” Crowley crooned. “Guardian of the Eastern Gate and all. You’ve been big news since the beginning, am I right? You’re their primary agent on Earth.” 

“I suspect it’s more the job that no one wants.” 

“Guarding the Son of God? The job that no one wants? Really.”

“Well, no, obviously this is an enormous honor! I was more referring to being stationed on Earth for… millennia on end,” Aziraphale clarified nervously. Always so nervous. Why? “Most angels of any importance prefer to keep their hands clean of unholiness.”

“Funny. Seems the Archangels have the most blood on their hands of anyone.”

Aziraphale frowned at him, and Crowley sighed apologetically.

“Sorry, tangent. Anyway, my point is, did you choose this assignment or was it chosen for you? You said Gabriel passed it on… so what’s he doing now?”

“Supervising, obviously,” Aziraphale said lightly.

Crowley’s neck prickled. “Now? Is he watching you now?”

“Oh, hardly,” Aziraphale breathed a laugh of strained relief. “He just likes to check in from time to time, make sure I’m…” his hands gestured vaguely. “Keeping up with expectations.”

“I should bloody well hope he’s given you some recognition for this, then.”

“For what?” Aziraphale asked meekly. 

“Don’t be modest.”

“For saving you?” Aziraphale’s posture shifted, wary.

“For—fffh—!” Crowley sputtered. “For thwarting so many demons you’ve lost count!”

“Oh, yes. That. Well, it’s all in the job description, isn’t it? Nothing actually exceptional.”

“Please, angel,” Crowley groaned, looking at him askance. “No wonder you’re thinking of asking for reassignment. They’ve got no appreciation for you.”

“Of course _you_ would say that,” Aziraphale laughed softly, hands pressed together in front of him at the fingertips. 

Taken off guard, Crowley couldn’t quite bring himself to ask for clarification as to why. Instead, they both fell into a silence again, and he wondered, all the rest of the way, what thought lay behind the compliment. An accusation of sowing discontent, no doubt. Definitely not because the angel knew of the growing warmth that had unfurled like a seed in the ashes at Crowley’s core, feeding off the radiance and mercy that surrounded Aziraphale as naturally as his snow-white curls.

Crowley folded his arms carefully around that seedling, hoping against hope that no one else could tell it was there. 

“How are you feeling?” Aziraphale asked gently, as they passed into the edge of the city. Crowley barely recognized the place—such was the effect of seven years of constant construction work. 

“Ngh? Fine,” Crowley said automatically. Then, again feeling ungrateful, he shrugged and muttered “all better” at Aziraphale’s sandals. 

The angel smiled. Crowley didn’t even look at it fully, but he could still _feel_ it.

…

“Well,” said Aziraphale, when he finally came back from his nearly hour-long chat with the proprietor of the women’s boarding house. “It’s all back in order, now. You have a room, though it’s not the same one as before.”

“Great. Good,” said Crowley. He straightened from where he’d been leaning against a wall, letting thoughts settle and avoiding the gazes of passersby. “You really didn’t have to do that.”

When Aziraphale didn’t immediately gush out some platitude about good deeds and such like, Crowley looked up, confirming that the angel seemed preoccupied with something else. One soft hand nearly clasped Crowley’s shoulder before Aziraphale remembered himself and let it drop. “Craw—Crowley. I_ am_ still planning on arranging a talk between you and Jesus, but for now, for your own safety, you _must_ avoid Nazareth. They’re bound to be sending someone else soon, and unless I’m very much mistaken, you don’t have any business there as far as hell is concerned.”

“Right,” Crowley agreed grimly, even as a part of him was still dumbfounded at the genuine concern in the angel’s voice. “Best to lie low.”

“Precisely.” 

_It’s a trap_, the old paranoid part of his brain shouted, but he was too tired to care.

“They’ve got to give up eventually,” Aziraphale added, as if trying to cheer him up. “And if all goes well, you might not even—well,” he cut himself off. “We’ll just see how it goes.”

“Mhm,” said Crowley.

“Right,” said Aziraphale.

They both stood there a moment. Several moments. 

Crowley cleared his throat. Shifted a bit on his feet to indicate he was leaving. Definitely didn’t feel awkward about the question of how much gratitude to express to one’s hereditary enemy when they’ve seen one in such a compromising state. 

“Right, then,” said Aziraphale again. “I’ll just… you had better get some rest now, I suppose.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll come check on you later, shall I?” 

“Mm.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale nodded too deliberately, as if trying to convince himself of something, and also took half a step back. “Well… sleep well.”

“Thanks,” Crowley said, and there was too much he needed to say for that one word to carry. It gave a valiant effort anyway. 

Aziraphale handed him the key, and turned to go. Crowley watched him walk away, the wood of the large Egyptian-style key warm and smooth in his hands. Bed was calling for him, the sweetness of a lesser oblivion than total extinction. A silence he could come back from, and see what was waiting for him on the other side. 

He went to the front gate of the boarding house, which was unlocked for the moment. Still, he kept his key in plain sight as he pushed through and into the courtyard, evidence that his presence here was legitimate. A woman at one end of the courtyard was up to her elbows in laundry, while two at the other end were busy cooking dinner. Neither of them looked familiar to Crowley, and he walked past them with no more than a polite nod of greeting.

Up the steps into the main room—the house was built into the side of the hill, in two levels, so that there were not just one but two rooftop areas as well. The common area on the first floor was mostly empty, and Crowley would have kept walking if not for the tiny detail that he had forgotten to ask which room was his. 

“Hey,” he said casually to the middle-aged woman sitting doing absolutely nothing in the corner, and waved his key a bit like a baton. “I’m new, just moved in. Would you happen to know which room I’d be in?”

She looked up, the light hit her face, and Crowley realized his mistake in the same moment she said “_No!_”

He wracked his brain trying to think how he’d offended the one housemate he recognized badly enough that she’d still gape at him in disbelief seven years later, and took a step backward when she stood from her bench. 

“It can’t be,” the woman gasped. “Tanis?” 

“Er, hi Salome,” said Crowley. 

“Where have you been? You disappeared overnight! And all your so-called husband would say is that you had a disagreement and he didn’t know where you’d gone. Imma and I feared the worst when we heard!”

“Oh, he’s—he’s not really my husband,” Crowley grimaced.

“Clearly! Otherwise you wouldn’t be living here. Unless he’s much more cruel than he seems. Or are you saying you _were_ married and he… put you away?”

The idea of Salome whispering to her friends about the angel performing domestic cruelties was simultaneously laughable and sickening. “No, no, we were never actually married,” Crowley sighed.

“Is that a sigh of relief or a sigh of longing?” 

Crowley rolled his eyes with a sleepy grin. “What makes you think it’s either?” 

“Must be. Either you want to be with him or you don’t. Are you two still at odds?”

Crowley frowned at how the casual words cut so close to the quick, unsettled because he wasn’t sure how to answer. That really was the question, wasn’t it? Were they? In name, at least, but was that all?

“Probably the least at odds we’ve been in years, actually.”

“Why so unhappy, then, if you love him?”

The warm growing thing in Crowley’s chest was too tender, too fragile to be seen so easily. He swallowed in nervous annoyance, snorted softly. 

“I’m always unhappy,” Crowley mumbled wryly.

“Family trouble?” The slant to Salome’s eyes was keen. 

Crowley grunted. “You might say that.”

“They don’t approve?”

“Oh, not at all,” Crowley sighed.

“Yours or his?”

“Both.” 

Salome hissed a sigh of sympathy. “You poor thing. Is it status?”

“Religion.” It felt a bit like bad luck, making light of something that Crowley had just spent the better half of a decade being tortured over. But at the same time, the heaviest times were only to be survived by making light. Otherwise Crowley would have been crushed a long time ago. “That’s why I had to go… home, for so long.” Crowley made a face. _Hell _and _home_ were words that didn’t belong within a mile of each other, and yet….

“Some sort of pilgrimage?”

“Oh, no. My _family’s_ just… controlling,” Crowley said, taking a perverse kind of pleasure in imagining a universe in which Beelzebub and Dagon and Satan himself were all just cantankerous relatives of the ordinary sort of horribleness, rather than literal demons who enjoyed literally torturing him. “Found out I was neglecting the duties of my sect and dragged me off to teach me a lesson.”

“Oh, good heavens,” gasped Salome.

“Ehh, try the opposite.”

“For so many years?”

“What can I say?” Crowley said wearily. “They’re fanatics.”

“That sounds horrible!”

“You’ve no idea. Anyway, there you have it. There’s plenty of reasons we’ve never actually married.”

“Ah. But he loves you?”

“Hardly matters if he does or not,” Crowley muttered, face twitching a little at that word. “It’s not going to work.” For plenty of reasons, both of the type Salome would understand, and of the other sort (prime amongst them being that marriage wasn’t something angels and demons did, even with beings on their own side).

“Oh, but Tanis, you’re still young.” 

Crowley choked on a laugh. “I’m older than I look.”

“So?” Salome reached up to brush some stray locks of hair from his face and he nearly flinched away before remembering—she wasn’t a demon, or an angel, or some God-human hybrid. Her touch would not burn, would not be a prelude to torments. She was just a human. “Don’t give up yet. How long have the two of you known each other, after all?”

“From the beginning,” Crowley said in a low, resigned voice. That was where this seed had been planted, hadn’t it? A tiny act of kindness, a sheltering wing, an almost-friendly exchange of words—the angel had thanked him, thanked him for his sass and sarcasm, not knowing what it was. 

“God has plans for you two, then,” said Salome, and now she did take him by the shoulders, staring up into his face with the kind of matter-of-fact confidence only a middle-aged woman giving love advice can possess. “Mark my words, He isn’t through with you yet.”

Crowley’s stomach cramped at that and he tried to keep a grin plastered on his face. “Thanks, Salome. That’s… erng… nice of you to say. Anyway, I’m actually exhausted from traveling so I think I’m going to go take a nap.”

“Everything is possible with faith,” said Salome, and her mouth quirked. “And a little passion doesn’t hurt either.”

“Right. Faith. Absolutely.” Crowley backed toward the nearest door before remembering it wasn’t necessarily his anymore. “Er, which room—”

“Top floor, last one on the right.”

“No windows?” Crowley grimaced.

“Afraid not.”

“Ah well, short notice. Beggars can’t be choosers.” Crowley backed his way up three steps before finally turning his back to Salome in full retreat. “Nice to see you again!”

The room was empty apart from the bed. That suited Crowley just fine. The air inside was a bit stuffy and stale, so Crowley left the door open halfway before falling onto the sheets and letting out a long, slow groan of a sigh. What a day.

What a year. What a decade and a half.

He closed his eyes and tried to amuse himself with imagined scenarios where Aziraphale laughed with him about Salome’s advice. But instead of getting rid of the hot fist in his stomach, it only made it grow. _But he loves you?_ Not as humans did, not as a husband and wife, or as friends, of course not, but as an angel loves, a distant, benevolent and impersonal love. That, he could almost imagine believing. 

But for a demon?

It wasn’t Aziraphale, after all, who had spoken of being friends. It was Jesus. Son of God though he be, he was still part human, and humans often seemed blissfully ignorant of such universal truths as “demons aren’t friend material” and “one does not change the laws of the universe merely by asking.” 

All that meant, though, was that Aziraphale should have known better.

Sloshing groggily through these thoughts, Crowley fell gradually into the first restful sleep he’d had in the better part of a decade. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [Here's some more info](http://www.ancientpages.com/2018/06/27/oldest-door-lock-comes-from-ancient-egypt/) on ancient types of locks and keys.


	12. Chapter 12

It took Crowley a few days to stop waking up disoriented, expecting to find himself in hell.

To wake up to the sounds of women’s footsteps and voices murmuring through the thick earth walls, and not instantly feel suspicious of their calm, or tense at the glint of light on sharp edges (sewing needles, kitchen knives), or frantic at the tiniest whirr of a (perfectly non-demonic) fly’s wings. 

He spent hours sleeping, and sitting out on the roof in the quiet of the night, and walking the streets of Sepphoris mentally cataloguing the changes since he’d last been there, still trying to let his subconscious self remember how to live among humans. He spent days waiting for Aziraphale to come back, impatient and nervous both at once, tasting the air for any hint of who else (from both sides) was taking enough of an interest in Jesus to show up personally, feeling a bit like someone placed temporarily (he dared not think it permanent) in a witness protection program.

Well, and some of that time was spent gossiping with Salome. 

“You know I think he really does have a lover in Nazareth,” Salome was saying one afternoon while teaching Crowley how to play backgammon.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley raised an eyebrow in amusement. There was no end to the interpersonal conspiracies Salome’s mind could think up.

“Yes, who else would I be talking about? He used to spend so much time here in Sepphoris, but all those years you were gone I hardly saw him.”

“He just goes there to watch over the boy,” Crowley sighed.

“You have a _child?_” Salome gasped. 

“He’s not _mine_—I mean, not Aziraphale’s either, he’s—”

“Then what’s your not-husband’s concern with him? An illegitimate son by a woman from Nazareth? How old is he?”

“Fourteen. Aziraphale’s just his….” Crowley barely restrained himself from bursting into laughter as the joke struck him. “Godfather.”

“Oh. As far as you know,” said Salome.

Crowley did allow himself a little snicker then, tickled by the absurd notion of Aziraphale and Mary having some sort of fling. It was truly ridiculous, not to mention probably a bit blasphemous, considering how heaven reacted to the whole Nephilim thing back before the flood. 

“So confident in his faithfulness, even after seven years apart?” 

“I don’t think I have to worry about him lying with other women.”

“Other women, yes. But you’re foreign folks, gentiles. Your people may have all sorts of inclinations.”

“They may,” Crowley shrugged. 

Just then, the youngest of their household, Joanna, barely older than Jesus, ran in from outside. 

“Sorry. Um, Tanis? Your—friend—is here to see you. I’m sorry, I can’t remember how to say his name.”

“Speak of the devil,” Crowley said, realizing suddenly how relaxed he’d allowed himself to get when the old nerves came creeping back in as he stood up from the game table. “Sorry, Salome, could we put the game on hold for a bit?”

“No,” Salome said with a smirk, scooping the pieces off the board and into the bag it had come with. “If I’m going to lose to you, I’d rather it be on your second try.”

“Crowley, hello there,” called the angel’s voice, and Joanna bit at her own nervous grin when Crowley whirled at the sound of it. 

“Sorry, I sort of let him in….”

Aziraphale stood in the doorway, smiling a little sheepishly.

“Hello,” he said again. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Nothing more important than Salome being a poor sport,” Crowley shrugged, pleased at his own careless tone. 

“She was trying valiantly to clear up some of my questions about why you spend so many of your days away from this beautiful lady,” Salome said, eyebrows arched almost accusingly at Aziraphale.

“Oh… well,” Aziraphale said, flushing slightly in embarrassment as he always did at such assumptions. “You know… work….”

“But she’s your woman!” Salome scolded. “Shame on you, letting her languish around here all day and night, barely sleeping, probably dreaming of nothing but you when she does—”

“Enough, enough, Salome, please,” Crowley laughed awkwardly, hurrying to Aziraphale’s side and linking his arms with his “husband” to quickly usher him through the door. “Have a nice afternoon!”

“As I’m sure you two will!” Salome cheered after them. “A woman has needs, you know.”

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale remarked, eyebrows nearly flying off his face the minute they’d turned their backs on the human. “What_ have_ you been telling her, dare I ask?”

“The truth, more or less, but in simple, human terms.” That frostbitten feeling crept into the points of contact between their corporal forms. “Her imagination fills in the rest.” 

“What_ is_ the truth, in simple human terms?” Aziraphale asked in a confidential murmur, once they were out the gate. He made no move yet to unlink their arms. 

Crowley felt an immense sense of gratitude that he was in fact not human and could turn off at least _some_ of the physical manifestations of nervousness (such as his face growing warm, for example) at will… if he concentrated hard enough. “Our families don’t like the idea of us cooperating. I got put under house arrest and punished by my family for neglecting my religious duties. Things like that.” 

“I see. Well, humans will be humans, I suppose.” 

“It’s easier not to argue with Salome.” Crowley felt the slightest tug between their arms as their steps fell out of sync, and he let go, shaking out the pins-and-needles feeling in his hand. “Anyway, what news from the grand metropolis of Nazareth?”

“Quite a few birthings of goats and such like,” Aziraphale humored him seriously. “Some local feuds about common use of the well.”

“So you think hell has given up?” Crowley asked, though he barely dared to hope. 

“Oh,_ that_ sort of news,” Aziraphale said with a sly smile. “Well, I’m happy to announce that the latest threat was neutralized before I was even fully aware of it.” 

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Aziraphale did look happy, but there was something strained about it. Crowley frowned slightly, wondering if it was actually worse than the usual underlying hand-wringing that was a natural part of life-as-Aziraphale, or if he was just imagining it. 

“I’ll let Jesus tell you about it—he’s waiting just around the corner up there. I thought we’d have a bit of a wander together.”

“Wait, he’s here?” Crowley choked. He wasn’t ready! For all his impatience and restlessness, the thought of having an honest discussion with the teenage godspawn about his intentions and what had happened, let alone with Aziraphale listening in, was still overwhelming. “Why?”

“To talk to you, of course.” The strain was starting to come through in Aziraphale’s voice. “It’ll be good for both of you, actually. Clear the air, I think.”

“How did you get his parents to agree to this?” Crowley wondered aloud. “What—where do they think he is right now?”

“Oh, well, ever since that incident in Jerusalem two years ago, he’s—ah, that’s right, you probably haven’t heard,” Aziraphale corrected himself sheepishly. “Jesus’ parents have learnt not to question too heavily when he gets a heavenly directive to carry out. He stayed behind in Jerusalem at twelve years old to preach in the temple, scared his parents half to death when they realized he wasn’t actually with the caravan, and they had to go back to retrieve him. But one can hardly argue when the Son of God says he’s going about his father’s business, can they?”

“Huh,” Crowley said in amazement. 

“Anyway,” Aziraphale muttered shiftily, “I told them he was to accompany me on angelic matters, and that was all they needed to know.” 

Crowley was almost too preoccupied wondering what more there might be to these _angelic matters_ to feel impressed. “Hm,” he said again, his eyes on the corner which concealed the 14-year-old waiting there like a bomb. He let his pace slacken, let himself fall a bit behind the angel, positioning himself so that there was a barrier between himself and the holiness of the Messiah. Funny that that barrier was still a holy being. 

Jesus waited for them, standing with his shoulders back against the wall of the public house, leaning with his hands tucked together behind him. He looked awkward and nervous, and out of his element, and again—so utterly human. Which only made the unease in Crowley’s lungs thicker. 

“Here we are,” Aziraphale said in a satisfied way, and Jesus’ gaze settled on Crowley. “Shall we? There’s a rather lovely stand of trees on the other end of the Decumanus.” 

“Hey,” Crowley said, raising a hand halfway in greeting as Jesus straightened from his near-slouch against the wall.

“Hi,” said Jesus. “I’m really sorry about—”

“S’fine,” Crowley interrupted. “Don’t mention it. Literally don’t.”

“But I—”

“Nope. All better, see?” Crowley gave a flourish of his no-longer-burned arm, good as new. “Just don’t go touching me again or I may well explode.”

Jesus nodded, looking terrified. Hell’s sake, his face was going ashen like he’d seen a ghost. Crowley groan-laughed through gritted teeth at the sight. 

“Really, I’m fine, no hard feelings. Anyway, Aziraphale said you had some big story to tell me?”

“Yes, yes, do tell her what happened to that demon who snuck up on you the other day!” Aziraphale said eagerly. 

And now the teenager looked like he might be sick, folding his arms loosely around his stomach and taking a deep breath. If Crowley wasn’t curious before, he was now. 

“Angel, what’ve you done to him?” Crowley grimaced. “He looks worse than I felt in literal hell.”

“I haven’t done anything; that’s the point! I didn’t have to.” Aziraphale beamed, looked almost manic for a moment, his face practically screaming _look everything is perfectly fine! Even better than fine!_ “In fact I doubt I’ll have to worry about my charge much from this point on.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jesus mumbled unsteadily. He began walking, giving both Crowley and Aziraphale plenty of space. 

“You discorporated a demon?” Crowley guessed, feeling every inch of his demonic self as the outsider here, unsettled. A typical angel would say this to gloat over what he’d taught his charge to do. But Aziraphale wasn’t… was he?

“I didn’t mean to,” Jesus creaked, staring at his own feet.

“He didn’t,” Aziraphale interjected. “It’s better than that.”

“Worse,” said Jesus.

“Well, it’s a matter of perspective, I suppose,” Aziraphale hedged. “But for the, ah, current situation facing all three of us, it certainly puts my mind at ease, knowing that hell will likely be forced to give up on harming Jesus directly very soon.” 

“It was awful.” The words were half spat, half spilled helplessly from Jesus’ mouth. “It happened before I even knew what was going on. It shouldn’t be that easy to kill someone! It’s not right!”

The gut-deep righteous anger, the knee-jerk rejection of harsh reality, was almost too much for Crowley to face hearing from a source outside himself. In those words he recognized a soul a little too close to home. 

His mind fled to shallows, to silver linings, and he suddenly understood Aziraphale’s manic smile. 

“It won’t take hell too many more examples before they realize it’s a waste to try that again,” Crowley said quietly. “It’s nothing to feel guilty about anyway. Just a demon, and it was an accident to boot. Like stepping on a caterpillar.”

“I _hate_ stepping on caterpillars,” Jesus cried. “Crowley, why are _you_ happy about this? After what I did to you—”

“Because the two things have _nothing_ to do with one another,” Crowley growled, surprised at the fierce, sudden impulse to protect Jesus from taking on any guilt that wasn’t rightfully his. “And both were accidents anyway.” _Besides, who do you think was intentionally torturing me for the past seven years? Other demons. _But Crowley didn’t say this, because that would prompt sympathy from Jesus, and that was altogether too much to take.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jesus repeated, and shuddered. “I just hope you’re right and they don’t send any more demons.”

Aziraphale sighed deeply. “Well, I suppose that isn’t what we’re here to discuss, after all. Jesus wanted to talk to you about your… status.”

Now it was Crowley’s turn to feel like he might be sick. Speaking of caterpillars, his stomach suddenly felt as if it were full of them.

“I wanted to apologize too. Anyway, let’s wait until we get away from people,” Jesus suggested in an undertone, and Crowley felt a split-second swell of gratitude as their gazes crossed. 

“Yeah.”

“Alright,” Aziraphale agreed. 

More awkward silence… ugh, Crowley didn’t do well with silence at all. “So,” he piped up not ten meters from where they’d started, “how’s Mary and Joseph?”

“Fine,” said Jesus. “They don’t know I’m here though.”

“Isn’t there some kind of commandment about lying and… and honoring your father and your mother?”

“I have more than one,” Jesus said defensively. “And I didn’t lie; I just didn’t tell them everything I’d be doing today.”

“Ah, mmhmm,” Crowley said in a knowing tone, a weird cocktail of worry and pride swishing around inside him. “And the goats?”

Jesus’ face relaxed a little. “Nurit had four kids, and all have survived so far.” 

Crowley whistled, impressed. “Must have been some special gourds.”

Jesus flushed and looked sheepish. “I didn’t actually buy the gourds… but I did try my best to keep her healthy.”

“Your best no doubt counts for more than most people’s,” Crowley muttered, wondering what that fact meant for him. 

“You really mustn’t worry yourself over what happened with that other demon, Jesus,” Aziraphale soothed, when the pall of regret settled back on the boy. “Even considering demons as equal persons, I’m fairly certain the law doesn’t count such an act as murder if it’s in self-defense.”

“I don’t care about the law!” Jesus blurted, and immediately went pale again, glancing around the busy street to see if anyone was looking at them. Luckily, the noises of hammering and sawing from the buildings going up across the street were more than enough to cover his outburst. “Aziraphale, I’m not upset because I’m worried about getting in trouble. That’s not what this is about at all! I thought you’d know that by now.”

Aziraphale’s mouth opened and closed, and he tucked his chin in, thoroughly rebuked. 

“I felt her fear,” Jesus hissed, on the verge of angry tears, or vomiting, Crowley wasn’t sure which. “And her suffering. She was so desperate for anything to feel good about, even if it would just hurt more later. It was only a second, and I felt everything she felt before she—before I—and it’s not just her body, it’s….”

Crowley’s skin crawled as he realized how close he’d come to the same fate—a pile of ash or nondescript goo, leaving only the flash of all his soul’s corruption burned into the back of Jesus’ mind forever. Dirtying and damaging that which was Good, even in extinction. 

“Are all demons like that?” Jesus asked unsteadily—but with a well of steadiness behind it, like a cry bouncing off a rock wall. “Crowley?”

“Like what?” Crowley’s mouth was dry. “Angry?”

“Not just angry,” Jesus half-whispered knowingly, and Crowley knew all at once that he could laugh, could make light, could flat-out lie, and Jesus wouldn’t buy any of it. He’d already seen right through him, literally… not to mention another demon for comparison. 

“Ngh… dunno.” Two opposing arguments had leapt to his tongue as glib suggestions: _I’m not like other demons, _and _demons are all alike. _At the moment both seemed equally dangerous to contemplate, let alone say. Jesus probably knew better than he did, by now, just how alike or different he and that other demon really were. Crowley swallowed the thoughts down.

“How terrible,” Aziraphale dared to murmur. “You shouldn’t have been exposed to that.”

“Not exposed to it?” Jesus looked at Aziraphale again in a way which made the angel flinch. “It shouldn’t have existed in the first place! Ugh.” Jesus hugged himself as he walked. “That doesn’t even make sense, anyway. How am I supposed to change anything if I don’t know what the truth is, and face the way things really are? Otherwise I’d be no better than those selfish rich men we visited today.”

Aziraphale forced a smile—more of a grimace, really—at that. “Well, if I’m not mistaken, you at least managed to influence Dolon a bit. You ought to congratulate yourself on that.”

“Dolon’s a gentile,” Jesus sighed. “Matthias should have been the one who was easier to convince, but he’s such a hypocrite…!”

“Ah. Hm,” Aziraphale said tentatively, “he may have been more amenable to your proposal with a bit more flattery, rather than… exhortation.”

“Wait, wait, how long have you two been in Sepphoris?” Crowley asked. 

“Since last night,” Jesus grumbled. “I’ve been thinking a lot could be better all over Israel if I talked to people who have power and money, and got them to help, but it’s been harder than I expected.”

“Better how?” Crowley wondered. 

“Well, have you even seen how many beggars there are in Jerusalem? And bandits on the roads?” Crowley realized suddenly that Jesus hadn’t smiled once since meeting up with them today. “People complain about the Roman occupation but even if they left us alone, there’d still be beggars and bandits and other problems because people don’t help each other. Or, I mean, some people do, but it’s usually people who already don’t have much, not the people who have plenty to go around. So then they have to beg or steal or work until they get injured or sick, and they think that’s how the world has to be, but it isn’t.”

“I agree, of course,” said Aziraphale, in a diplomatic tone, “but you must understand that these people see you merely as an inexperienced young man from a working-class family who has no social power that they are required to follow. Your choices then are to make allies of them in order to influence them later, or to find some way to convince them of your power now.”

“But I already offered them the choice to be allies and—and it shouldn’t be about _power _anyway!” Jesus growled in frustration. “They shouldn’t listen to me because I’m more powerful, they should listen to me because it’s the right thing to do!”

“They simply require careful handling,” Aziraphale went on in that delicate tone. “It probably took careful maneuvering for them to maintain their power under Roman rule, and they are protective of their comforts, naturally, so—”

“And while they’re looking out for themselves, the rest of their people are being left alone to deal with the actual burden of the Romans being here! Maybe they should actually use their privileges for something useful. Ugh! And they say poor people are lazy, or that riches are a reward for righteousness.” The disgust was thick in Jesus’ voice. Crowley had never heard him speak of other humans in such a way, and it was exhilarating and dreadful at the same time. “That’s obviously not true. A really righteous person would share what they have and know it doesn’t really belong to them anyway!”

Aziraphale fell silent, seeming to feel that he’d said too much already, and Crowley marveled at how the passion of Jesus as a child had only begun to burn hotter with age. Of course the Messiah needed to embody the zealousness of a revolutionary. Crowley wondered how soon it was all going to happen.

Jesus took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, it was quiet, almost scared. “I don’t want to go through every awful thing I’m supposed to do to free my country just to have it fall apart again because people don’t realize the weaknesses that keep putting us here.” 

Crowley stared at the boy: his shoulders which were only just beginning to broaden out, his awkward limbs, the gentle smattering of acne and peach fuzz on his jaw. He was a raw and half-formed thing, unfiltered, a child daring to wade chest-deep into the philosophical marshes which had mired wise men for centuries.

“What awful things?” Crowley wondered aloud. 

“I’ve studied the scriptures,” Jesus said heavily. “I know how this works. People always die, either by the hand of their neighbors or because God sends down some punishment like the flood, or fire and brimstone. Do you know how Samuel commanded King Saul to destroy even the infants and the animals of the Amalekites? He was only eleven when God made him a prophet. I always wonder what he felt about giving that command.” He paused to take a fortifying breath, scratching at his neck, agitated. “I don’t know if I’m going to end up more like Samuel or more like Jeremiah. No one listened to Jeremiah at all, but he couldn’t stop preaching, no matter what people did to him. If there are any stories where everyone listens and no one gets hurt, they’re not the ones that got written down.”

And Crowley could see it, then, the way Jesus looked at his future, the burden of knowing he was going to be a tool toward an end decided for him and humanity both. Just like every angel, every demon. 

“Well,” said Aziraphale softly, and he put a gentle hand on Jesus’ arm. “There’s a first time for everything, isn’t there? I’ve no doubt this one will be written and remembered.”

Jesus hung his head. “But people have already gotten hurt, and I haven’t even really done anything yet.”

“Who? Demons don’t count,” said Crowley, before he could help himself.

“You do,” said Jesus with a reproachful look that said _I know you don’t really believe that._ “Demons count.” 

Crowley gulped. There was quite a difference between Jesus’ glares as a seven-year-old and as a fourteen-year-old, even without knowing the power the boy possessed to totally destroy him if he wanted to. It was even more disorienting to imagine the look came from a place of razor-sharp compassion.

They’d reached one end of the Decumanus, the main thoroughfare which ran east-west through the city. As Aziraphale had said, there was an elegant stand of cypress trees, interspersed with a lush (for these parts) understory of shrubs and grasses. The path grew several narrow, diagonal branches leading off into the greenery, and Aziraphale led Jesus forward onto one of them, Crowley tailing along behind as the harsh afternoon sun turned gentle and diffuse. 

For a while it was just the musky scent of the evergreens, the sound of their sandals along the path. From behind them, Crowley watched Aziraphale and Jesus walking, the angel holding onto the Messiah’s arm as if Jesus were his nephew and he the unsteady elder, though in reality it was Jesus who needed steadying. There was a sense of standing on the thin edge of a wall between life as Crowley had known it for millennia, and something very different on the other side, and he knew if he fell now, there was no guarantee his wings would carry him back to where he stood. 

All too soon, Jesus pulled away from Aziraphale and turned to face Crowley on the path, and Crowley’s feet scuffled to a hasty halt. 

“I asked God about you.”

Crowley’s stomach plunged through the earth and he steeled himself. That is, he tried to steel himself, but could not find much steely within to summon.

“Eh?” he croaked. He cleared his throat. “That so.”

Jesus’ expression was complicated, brow furrowed, mouth twisted somewhere between a weak smile and a pensive frown. 

“I’m still trying to figure out the answer. But here’s what I think it is.”

Birds hopped and fluttered in and out of sight, hiding in the dusty hollow spaces between the thick greenery and the trunk. The _fffbbbt_ of small rapid wings clipped past Crowley’s ear as he waited for judgment, forcing his fingers to stay loose at his sides.

“You were meant to be who you are,” said Jesus. “That, I definitely know.”

Crowley took a sharp breath as the words sank in like teeth. “What is that supposed to mean? It—what—it’s all part of the plan that I’m a demon now? God’s happy to watch me doing evil and—t—chkgh—enduring torments? Forever?” He could not look at Aziraphale. He most definitely should not look at Aziraphale—but he could feel Aziraphale looking at him.

“No. I mean, I don’t… that’s not what I meant,” Jesus frowned. 

“Who I am is what got me into all this!” Crowley snarled. “Who I am isn’t who I was _meant _to be at all! If I was meant to be a demon why didn’t God just make me one to start with, save a bit of trouble?”

“Do you want to let me explain or not?” Jesus cried. 

Crowley shut his mouth. 

Jesus ran a hand through his curls, which only made them stick out in odder bunches, and exhaled explosively. “It didn’t feel like that. It was different. It’s just hard to explain, but I know I’ll be able to eventually.” 

“Right,” said Crowley through his teeth, and waited, unable to bring himself to ask what the point was. Obviously, the point was that God was still satisfied with Their decision to cast him out. What else mattered in light of that?

“So there’s hope,” Jesus said.

“What?” Crowley couldn’t have heard that right.

Jesus looked at him worriedly, as if he’d said something daft. “I said there’s hope.”

“Excuse me? Hope? For what?” Crowley gaped around as if it were something he should have been able to see, and spread his arms. “For continued existence? Same old circus? Oh, grand, I’ll go ahead and book my next dozen torment sessions with Dagon and resign myself to actually being a glorious tool for Satan’s futile rebellion.”

A strange whine came from Aziraphale, and Crowley made the mistake of looking at him. The angel looked as if Crowley had just described the murder of an innocent puppy in gruesome detail.

“What are you whimpering about?” Crowley snapped, and flinched internally when Aziraphale covered his own mouth with his hands and turned away. Now he’d done it. Disgusted the angel to the point of nausea, clearly, with his blatant disregard for decorum in the Messiah’s presence.

Jesus’ face had taken on a stony look, though. “Crowley,” he said, his voice suddenly less that of a teenager and more that of an Authority. “Do you think I would ask you to hope for that?”

Crowley shuddered helplessly and looked away. “No.” It came out under his breath, eyes on the grass—a beetle’s wings flashed through a spot of sun near his sandals. 

Jesus sighed heavily. Groaned, actually, and plunked down on the path, still the same child who had sobbed at the death of a donkey. 

“When I say there’s hope, please believe me,” Jesus murmured.

“I do,” Crowley said, and then swallowed as doubt burned him. “I want to,” he corrected himself. And then, sinking deeper: “I don’t know how.” How to stop being afraid to even believe it was possible.

At Jesus’ silence, frustration and hurt rose up in Crowley’s throat like spikes. What was he expecting from a teenage demi-god? The boy’s human side was no doubt a mess of emotions and impulses, and the influence of God on his psyche was just as bad in a different way. He didn’t know what he was doing any more than Crowley did. 

“I know it looks bad,” Jesus mumbled, drawing circles in the dust of the path beside him with one finger. “Aziraphale said somehow the gap between our natures must have widened and that’s why I hurt you so badly even though you could touch me before. I don’t have all the answers yet. But I know that things can change, and that changing things is the whole reason I’m here.” He lifted his eyes from the dust, and those eyes were the same eyes that had looked to Crowley for comfort as a child, as an infant, and Crowley couldn’t look away. “Please don’t give up on me.”

_Please don’t give up_, Crowley could have shrugged off. Giving up was his choice—it was his existence, or rather, it wasn’t, and that was the whole point. But those last two words were what did it. Crowley hissed through clenched teeth.

“Rrrrgh. Don’t say that,” he groaned. 

Jesus blinked at him, vulnerable, nervous. “You’re the one who pushed me to believe in my own thoughts. To trust what I think is right. Please don’t tell me that was just some elaborate plot to corrupt me, because I know that’s not true. That’s not what you actually wanted.”

“Fine,” Crowley breathed weakly, keenly aware of Aziraphale’s eyes on him as he desperately searched the scrub and grass around his feet for more insect-shaped distractions. 

“You want to be good, and you a—”

“Alright, _alright_, I said! Ch-ch-shhgh!” Crowley cried in desperation, even going so far as to shake his hands toward Jesus to cut him off. “I believe you, I hope you can magically change the order of heaven and hell even if it seems impossible, and I’m not giving up yet, happy?”

Jesus grinned a little. “Well, you’re probably lying a little bit, but only a little bit. Okay.” 

“Oh, Jesus,” Aziraphale cried in delight and even clapped his hands, the ridiculous angel. “I knew you could convince him!”

“And why do _you_—ngk—no, nevermind,” Crowley stammered. If the angel started crying again over him he just might have to shed his limbs and burrow under the nearest rock.

“Be patient, Crowley,” Jesus said softly. “I’ll do my best.”

“Yeah. Right. Yeah, I know.” Crowley shuffled his feet. “Just wondering—God wasn’t… angry with you, for asking about me? You’re not about to get disowned?”

Jesus shook his head. “Not at all.”

“Oh.” Crowley cleared his throat. “Well. Good. That’s good then.”

“God’s not about to disown Her beloved son, Crowley,” Aziraphale laughed, and most of the manic edge was gone—he sounded genuinely happy. 

A lump swelled in Crowley’s throat and he just nodded, mouth a tight line, eyebrows forced up to turn his expression exaggerated, safe, just Crowley being Crowley—nothing meaningful. 

“You don’t have to worry about me.” Jesus reached out to feel the petals of a yellow crocus growing near where he sat. “You don’t have to worry about anything. God’s going to work it all out. We just don’t know when or how yet.”

Crowley had heard that phrase before, probably a million times from naïve and desperate and willfully ignorant lips, but hearing it from Jesus was a bit different. No one else had ever said those words to him while still knowing fully what he was. 

Footsteps scuffed the path behind him, and he turned and stepped back to let a handful of kids rush through, giggling and shushing each other as a longsuffering parent yelled after them. Jesus hopped to his feet and dusted off his clothes, smiling a little. 

“I’m hungry,” he announced. “Let’s go get something to eat.”

“Oh yes, let’s,” Aziraphale agreed. “Crowley, you’ll join us, won’t you?” 

The lump was still there in Crowley’s throat, and for a moment he hesitated, imagined going back to his room to hole up and process all the boy had said, try to reestablish a sense of normalcy, reach the old equilibrium between awareness and avoidance of reality. But things had changed, and he wasn’t going to find his footing properly by pretending they hadn’t.

After a slow inhale, he let himself take in Aziraphale’s almost-childlike face, the excitement there, somehow aimed at him.

“Sure, angel.”

…

The bowl was empty in front of Crowley, but there was still a bit of flatbread left. He tore the last piece in two and used it to wipe the last bit of pottage up before stuffing it in his mouth. 

“Good lord, Crowley, you’ve never eaten like this in front of me before,” Aziraphale said, his tone almost scolding, but when Crowley looked up, the angel was smiling, almost coy.

“Yeah? Well. Spend long enough in hell, and every bit of earth life gets back a bit of the old shine, I guess,” Crowley muttered once he’d swallowed, and downed a mouthful of wine. Reclining on his side, he rolled over onto his back with a long, drawn-out sigh, awash with sleepiness. One arm came up to tuck under his head. 

Jesus and Aziraphale sat on the other side of the table. Jesus had eaten nearly as much as Crowley, and faster, but Aziraphale had lingered over his single plate of fish, seeming to want to draw out and enjoy every single mouthful. 

While they had eaten, Jesus and Aziraphale had done most of the talking, filling Crowley in on random anecdotes of what he’d missed. Daniel, John’s next-door neighbor, had joined the Roman military and been sent far away, rarely heard from. Jesus had two younger siblings now, Jonathan and Mara, and he helped take care of them when he wasn’t doing carpentry work with Joseph. Jesus’ cousin John had become somewhat reclusive since the death of his aged father, and John’s mother was not long for this world either. The house had been damaged by heavy rainfall, then rebuilt bigger and better than before, and their herd of goats had first dwindled and now was expanding again since the younger children were old enough to help care for them. Jesus had gotten into several arguments with his local rabbi, but continued to go to synagogue every week, sometimes more than once. 

“Oh, you haven’t talked about all the weddings,” Aziraphale said merrily between ever-tinier bites of fish. 

“The weddings,” Jesus sighed and nodded. “Suddenly everyone a few years older than me is getting married. And even Ananias… his birthday is just a week after mine and he’s betrothed now! My mother’s started mentioning which girls’ families she likes best, after synagogue.”

Aziraphale wiggled a little where he sat. “It’s lovely going to the festivities, isn’t it?” 

“Well, it is, but… I don’t think I’ll be getting married. At least not any time soon.” 

“I suppose you are a bit young, still,” Aziraphale conceded.

“Yeah, trust me, kid, you want to be careful with that decision,” Crowley yawned at the ceiling, feeling almost… content. “Especially since you’re still helping with the younger kids at home.”

“I don’t mind taking care of kids.” Jesus voice was quiet, pensive. “But I just don’t know if it would be the right thing to do.”

Crowley sat up and frowned at the boy in concern. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m supposed to give my life over to God’s plan, so I guess if He… She… if… if I’m supposed to marry someone, I guess I will, but….”

“But what about what you want?” Crowley asked. “Say God didn’t say one way or another… what would you be inclined to do?”

“I still don’t know if it would be right, having children,” Jesus shrugged, tracing the wood grain of the table with his thumb. “I’m… I’m not sure how long I’m supposed to live, after all.”

Aziraphale’s merry look vanished. “Jesus… what—what ever do you mean? You’re the Messiah. You’re meant to lead the people to freedom. To be their champion and savior!”

“But does that mean I live through it?” Jesus asked. “Sometimes a martyr is more powerful than a living king.”

“What makes you think that?” Crowley leaned partially across the table, scowling.

“The words of the prophets,” Jesus mumbled. “I don’t always know which ones are about me, but I have a feeling about some of them. Maybe it’s just my imagination and Isaiah is talking about Jeremiah or some other prophet….”

He trailed off, shaking his head at himself. 

“Yeah. Probably a different prophet,” Crowley said uncomfortably. “Right, new question. So if you were just a regular human, what would you want to do with your life?”

Aziraphale gave him a sharp, wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights stare. 

Crowley ignored it, waving a hand toward Aziraphale as if the angel were a mosquito, full attention on Jesus instead, chin in his hand.

“Um.” Jesus’ face pinched and his fidgeting stopped. “Huh. I… haven’t really thought about that for a long time.” 

“You’re only fourteen,” Crowley reminded him. “You’ve got plenty of time to save your country. Just because you have a job to do doesn’t mean you can’t also have a life of your own.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale broke in tentatively, “I don’t know that this line of questioning is entirely appropri—”

“Anyway,” Crowley pressed on, “it’s a big world out there. Don’t you think you ought to learn more about it before you get so focused on this one little corner of it?”

“It would be nice to travel,” Jesus admitted, a shy grin creeping over his face, as if he barely dared dream of such a thing. “I think I’d like that even more than making a family. I mean, a family would be nice too, maybe, but… I already worry a lot about how my parents will handle what I have to do. Especially my mother. And it would be worse if I had kids, and a wife. And I’ve never really understood other boys anyway, the way they look at women, so it wouldn’t be about that either. But someone who would be with me my whole life… who would be my friend and work alongside me…. I think I would like it, if somebody wanted to. But it’s too much to ask just anyone to do. Unless God told me to, of course.”

“Of course,” Crowley echoed sourly, annoyed at the way Jesus’ wistful tone made his stomach hurt. He raised his nearly-empty cup of wine to his mouth to mask the frown there.

“What about you?” Jesus asked, keeping his voice low enough that the hubbub of the other patrons at the restaurant could mask it.

Crowley swallowed hurriedly to avoid choking, but still had to cough a couple times anyway. “What? What about me?”

“If you weren’t a demon, what would you want to do with your life?”

“You mean if I was human?” Crowley hadn’t allowed himself to think of it for a long time. “Too much of a bother. Not enough time. You so much as sleep too much and suddenly a significant portion of your life is down the drain and you’ll never get it back, never mind all the diseases.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale warned, and Crowley realized how his comments would sound to Jesus, who had just been speaking of what limited time he may have on earth.

“Errrrr,” said Crowley. “I mean, ahh… ng… I s’pose I’d… just try to enjoy whatever I could while it lasted. Anyway, humans are easier for God to forgive, so maybe I’d become a rabbi or something so I could have fun arguing with young upstarts like you.”

Jesus rewarded him with a weak, grateful laugh, and Crowley relaxed a little. 

“People would come from all over to hear our debates,” Jesus dreamed. “And you, Aziraphale? What would you do?”

“I… uh,” Aziraphale said faintly, his smile flickering like a candle in a drafty room. “Never really thought about it.”

“But you already live so much like a human.”

“Well… perhaps that’s part of it, then.” Aziraphale steadied. “I suppose I’d do all the same sorts of things….” His eyes came to rest on Crowley with an odd look, troubled or considering, Crowley didn’t know which. 

“If we were human, we would have earthly families,” Crowley mused. “Parents and siblings and children of our own, probably.”

“Would you want to be a man or a woman?” Jesus asked. 

“Depends when and where I would be living.” 

“I would be a man, I think,” Aziraphale said. “Simply because I’ve grown used to most people assuming as much. Though to be an actual man would come with its own disadvantages, no doubt….”

“Try being an actual woman,” Crowley grunted. “If I had a choice, I’d just have the same kind of body I do now.”

“But then you wouldn’t actually be human,” Jesus argued.

“I just mean the way it looks, not how long it lives.”

“But humans are male or female. You’d have to pick one. Aziraphale says your bodies don’t… um… don’t look like either unless you really concentrate.”

“Oh, you humans are so good at ignoring the most interesting bits of creation,” Crowley sighed. “Humans aren’t just male and female either, actually, there’s—there’s a whole range of—you know what, never mind. Try this idea on for size—God’s not actually male or female, right?” 

“I guess not,” Jesus nodded. “Not in any human sense anyway.”

“But the scriptures say that humans were made in God’s image, both male and female, don’t they?” Crowley grinned. “So what does that tell you?”

“That God’s both,” Jesus said.

“Not both. All. And none.”

Jesus leaned his chin on one hand, pondering that. 

“There’s always more to the story,” Crowley murmured confidentially. “To any story.”

“Alright, enough of your serpent’s whisperings,” Aziraphale said, but again, it was half-teasing. Just how much wine had the angel had?

“Have I said anything that isn’t true?” Crowley challenged.

“Well, no, not really, but that’s not the point, is it?” Aziraphale laughed.

“Then what is the point? Please, illuminate me, angel.”

Aziraphale shook his head, still laughing a little, and Crowley felt again that strange grasping, uncurling feeling in his chest, the tickle of new growth, of something coming awake and shifting toward the surface. 

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, with those beautiful smile-lines by his eyes. “I can hardly wait for the day when you’re officially working for heaven again. Imagine the rejoicing among the choirs!” 

When. Not if. _When_. 

Crowley reared back, stiffened, hands braced on the edge of the table. 

“What is it?” Jesus sat up straighter, looking around. “Is someone coming?” 

“No,” said Crowley, feeling lightheaded. Light-bodied, too light all over, like he wasn’t really here. “No.” 

Jesus stopped scanning the room, refocusing on him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” said Crowley stiffly, but everything felt wrong. The table’s edge under his palms, the cushion under his bottom, the sounds of dishes and footsteps and background chatter, and especially the presence of the two beings on the other side of the table, at ease after all they’d done to him. “Everything’s fine. Just… thought I heard something.”

“You’re lying,” Jesus observed, sounding confused.

“Stop that!” Crowley hissed. 

“Oh… sorry, I don’t really know how,” Jesus grimaced. “Uhh….”.”

“Anyway,” said Crowley pointedly. “Don’t you two need to head back to Nazareth before it gets dark?”

“I guess so,” Jesus sighed. “I’ll be back again in a week or two. Maybe even sooner if papa brings me along for some work.”

“Great,” said Crowley, aware of how false his voice sounded and hating it. He could see from the shift in Jesus’ face that the boy heard it too. “Safe travels back. Watch out for those bandits.”

“Are you sure you’re not mad at me?” Jesus asked. 

Did he have to ask so sincerely? Crowley growled. “Of course I’m not mad at you, why would I be mad at you?! What makes you think I—”

“You’re growling at me.”

“Can’t a demon growl? That’s just my voice, it does that when I—it just does that.”

“When you’re angry or scared, maybe.”

“No, no, she has a point,” Aziraphale said lightly. “She does growl sometimes even when smiling. She’s always been exceptionally expressive.”

“Exactly! Thank you!” Crowley flung an arm in wide gesture toward Aziraphale. 

“But you were so relaxed a minute ago!”

“Moody creatures, demons,” Crowley sniffed. “Anyway I’m still relaxed, just not falling asleep like before.”

“Is it because we’re about to leave?” Jesus smacked a fist into his other hand. “That’s it, isn’t it? You want us to stay but you don’t want to ask.”

“No!” Crowley cried. “I don’t. Actually I have somewhere else to be so the sooner you both leave the better, no offense.”

“Somewhere else?” Aziraphale finally looked worried. “Somewhere earthly or… demonic?”

“Earthly, obviously. I wouldn’t be so eager to get back to hell. What kind of masochist do you take me for?”

Aziraphale made a noncommittal noise and grudgingly ate the very last piece of his fish.

“Crowley, you can tell me,” said Jesus. “What’s going on?”

“Just relax and quit badgering me!” Crowley hissed, pushing himself halfway up to stand. “Anyway, it’s nothing, I said.”

“Okay, okay.” Jesus held out his hands in a calming motion. “We’ll go if you want us to go. But first, are you in any danger?”

Crowley shook his head. Not that he knew of, though that might change if Jesus kept trying to question him. 

“Will I see you again next week?” Jesus asked, and his voice was nearly the same voice as that last goodbye, asking him not to go. 

Crowley shrugged, still hovering in a half-stand. “I’m planning on it.”

Reluctantly, Jesus started to get up, and Aziraphale sighed and followed suit while Crowley sank back down onto the cushions. 

“It was good to see you again,” said Jesus, and Crowley could only bear about a second’s contact with those kind eyes before he had to look away.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “You too.”

“Peace be with you,” Jesus said, softly enough Crowley almost didn’t hear it. 

“Be well, Crowley,” said Aziraphale, and Crowley flinched, expecting the burn of a blessing. Just a faint tingle hit him. He suppressed a shiver as he watched Aziraphale pay the staff, and the angel and the Son of God left the building, looking over their shoulders toward him more than once. 

He sat alone in the noise of humanity, staring at the tiny fish bones on Aziraphale’s plate, feeling ridiculous, and almost dizzy with relief, shame, and nerves. 

For nearly ten more minutes he sat there, trying to push his mind back onto a normal track of thought, arranging and rearranging his spine and limbs into forcibly relaxed, casual postures. But when he thought of the three of them talking lazily about impossibilities, of himself lying flat on his back, utterly calm less than a meter away from the one being who had almost destroyed him, his fabricated cool cracked. 

Sweating—he wasn’t supposed to sweat, when did he become capable of sweating?—Crowley swayed to his feet, through the crowds, out the door. 

It wasn’t even that hot outside. The restaurant was on the east side of the city, and the sun was already getting low enough in the west that the shadows of the buildings were long, and shade was plentiful. Crowley paced, wobbly-legged, though he hadn’t drunk any substantial amount of anything with dinner.

_Why—_

He stopped himself there. _Why_ was trouble. _Why_ went nowhere, and gave no answers, only silence and frustration. The best thing to do was… just to _do something_. Wait until the feeling passed. It had to pass. 

Crowley drifted through the city streets, aimless, relentless, buried his nose in incense until he choked, his hands in lush fabrics, his ears in music, his taste buds in wine, until it was dark, and he was flat-out drunk, bellowing a dithyramb at the top of his lungs with a group of travelling Greek performers. 

Cooking-fires crackled to fill the quiet after their last shouts, turning the skin of his face warm and dry, and Crowley swayed, resisting the temptation to curl up as a snake in this very spot. The world was dull and harmless again, the voices around him a comforting blur, just like the firelight shadows. 

“I’ve bad news, my friends,” called one of the troupe. “The tenants at the nearby inn are complaining of the noise.”

“Let us sing something a bit softer, then,” suggested the flute-player. “Let us sing the last words of Seikilos to his beloved.”

There were uncertain murmurs, and some laughs and groans of disagreement, but the flute-player simply tested the tune until he was confident in it, and a friend beside him began to intone the words sweetly, repeating them louder the second time through. 

The meaning trickled slowly into Crowley’s ears, more and more voices joining. He pulled the blanket—when had someone given him a blanket?—closer around himself with the hand unoccupied with drink, the night thick like wool in his ears, pierced through with pinpoints of clarity. 

_As long as you live, shine… let nothing grieve you beyond measure._

Aziraphale’s words crept back hot into his unsuspecting stomach like nausea. Rejoicing in heaven. That would imply that anyone had grieved his fall.

_ For your life is short, _sang the flutist’s brother tenderly, lovingly, _and time will claim its toll._

It was like a death, wasn’t it? Had he ever truly lived, since then, especially in the eyes of the other angels? It was a doom much more final than a human death, actually… and one which any being could only dream of reversing. 

It made no sense for God to grieve a child They had chosen to destroy. How could he bear to hear rejoicing at his own return—how could he dare to even imagine returning—knowing that? And would the shape of his soul, bent even more the last four thousand years, ever be pounded back into the mould of something obedient and fit for the heavens, without breaking? 

_As long as you live, shine, _the refrain began again, nearly the whole group singing or humming along now, and the drunken night swam warm in Crowley’s eyes, the firelight streaking and leaking molten down his cheeks.

He fell asleep and did not dream of heaven, and that was a merciful thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I had no idea before I looked it up but apparently backgammon is a really old game o_0  
2\. I had [this chapter of Isaiah](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+53&version=KJV) in mind when imagining Jesus considering the fate of other prophets.  
3\. Mosaics were (and still are) an important part of Sepphoris, and [ some of them still exist today. ](https://biblewalks.com/Sites/SepphorisMosaics.html)  
4\. Dithyrambs are wild ancient Greek choral hymns dedicated to Dionysus  
5\. The [Song of Seikilos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RjBePQV4xE) is a real song from ancient Greece. Although it's implied that what I've chosen to include as lyrics are a separate poem Seikilos engraved on his wife's gravestone, I took some artistic license to say that they're one and the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please please comment! It's so dearly appreciated!!


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